Silent Knit, Deadly Knit

by Peggy Ehrhart

  Penny shook the garment out then swirled it around, passing one arm over her head, until it came to rest on her shoulders. It was so long, the excess fabric pooled on the floor around her. “It even has a hood!” She reached back and tugged at the hood until the front edge flopped down over her eyes.

  “Are they wearing capes in college these days?” Pamela asked with a fond laugh.

  “Mo—om!” Penny laughed in return. “It’s for Halloween. It will be perfect.”

  “We can use the dress form to hem it up,” Pamela said. “I can manage that much sewing and I don’t want you tripping when you go out in it.”

  “Dress form?” Bettina raised her brows.

  “Over there.” Penny pointed toward the stall at the end of the row. Though headless, the dress form stood like a pale monitor, watching the proceedings from its corner. “We’re taking it home.”

  “Will it fit in my car?” Bettina said dubiously.

  “It’s adjustable,” Penny responded, as matter-of-factly as if her knowledge of dress forms hadn’t been acquired only a few minutes earlier.

  “Are we finished in here then?” Bettina asked. “There’s a whole upstairs with tons more stuff.”

  Pamela and Penny nodded. Penny folded the cape and her other finds and stacked them on top of the cardboard box full of knitting supplies. “I’ll take this stuff out and leave it with that woman at the entrance,” she said. “Can you get the dress form?”

  Pamela nodded again and Penny headed toward the door that separated the stable from the room that had housed the carriage.

  Meanwhile Pamela, followed by Bettina, made her way through the small crowd of roaming browsers toward the stall that held the dress form. Once there, she edged among the stacks of boxes and grabbed the dress form with one hand on each side of its solid waist. The metal post that supported it was anchored to a heavy metal base. She was struggling to free the base from the crush of boxes when a pleasant male voice behind her said, “Let me give you a hand with that.”

  Pamela let go of the dress form. It teetered briefly and then steadied. She turned to see a friendly looking man with salt-and-pepper hair reaching out an arm toward the dress form. “It’s okay,” Pamela said. “Really. I can do it.”

  “A couple of these boxes are probably holding the base down,” he said. Before she could protest again, he began lifting boxes and re-piling them near where Bettina was standing at the entrance to the stall.

  “Thank you so much!” Bettina gave the man a bright smile as he looked up from his task to acknowledge her words.

  “Are you together?” He glanced from Bettina to Pamela and then back.

  “Why, yes,” Bettina said, directing an admiring glance from beneath a shadowed eyelid. “And I’m wondering if we’ll even be able to fit that thing into my little Toyota to get it back home.”

  “I could give you a hand.” His gaze wandered back to Pamela, who once again had gripped the dress form by the waist and was tugging at it.

  “That would be wonderful!” Bettina smiled even more brightly. Just then Pamela gave a mighty tug and the dress form came free. She teetered backwards, still clutching the dress form. She would have landed on her back on the floor with the dress form on top of her if the friendly man hadn’t caught her with one arm and used his other hand to push the dress form away.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later the dress form, with its post and base detached, had been stowed in Bettina’s trunk, along with the box of knitting supplies and the clothes. The engraving had been laid carefully on the passenger seat. Pierre had vacated his garden chair, but the woman at the entrance had recognized them and confirmed there was to be no charge for their finds.

  “You could have been more grateful to that man,” Bettina observed as they walked back down the gravel path toward the carriage house.

  “I told him thank you,” Pamela responded. “I was grateful.”

  “He was obviously interested in getting to know you better,” Bettina added. Penny was walking far enough ahead not to overhear the conversation.

  “I didn’t notice that.” Pamela picked up her pace.

  “Well, I did,” Bettina said firmly. “Not that I’m saying you should have encouraged his interest. But you’re an attractive woman, and still so young. I hope you’re planning to wear something flattering on Christmas Eve—”

  “Because Richard Larkin is going to be there. Yes, yes, I know.”

  Pamela hurried over the gravel until she reached Penny’s side. But Bettina had not given up. The words “I hope you’re planning to give him some cookies or a loaf of your poppy-seed cake” floated through the chilly air.

  * * *

  They stepped back into the dim interior of the carriage house, stopping to survey the room that had housed the carriage before starting up the rustic stairway that led to the attic. “There’s the periwinkle coat again,” Bettina said, pointing down one of the aisles that led past heaps of odds and ends toward the back wall. “Who on earth would wear a coat that color to rummage among heaps of dusty old things?”

  The woman wearing the periwinkle coat paused and turned—and her face caught the light from one of the lamps pressed into service as makeshift illumination. Pamela and Bettina both whispered her name.

  “I don’t think she’s here to hunt for antiques,” Pamela added, though the woman was twisting her head this way and that as if hunting for something—or, more likely, someone. It was Jeannette Thornton.

  “Here to keep an eye on Pierre, no doubt,” Bettina murmured.

  The stairs creaked alarmingly as they climbed to the upper floor. And glancing down made the climb seem even more precarious, since the stairs had no risers and the floor below was visible through the gaps between the individual steps. Pamela was grateful for the railings on both sides and clutched them firmly.

  When they reached the top, they found themselves in a room as crowded with castoffs as the room below. The ceiling rose to a high peak overhead and sloped steeply toward the front and back of the space. Small dormer windows allowed a bit of light to filter in, and spotlights had been clamped to some of the rafters. On all sides were dusty curiosities, long-buried but unearthed by the morning’s crush of people pawing through disorderly piles. Draperies in bold tropical prints, a tangle of men’s ties, grimy pots and pans—all were strewn here and there.

  To the left was a partition constructed of rough wooden planks. A doorway with no door led into another large space, perhaps corresponding to the stable area below. To the right was another partition, also featuring a doorway with no door.

  “It seems bigger up here than below,” Pamela observed.

  “It is,” Bettina said. “The groom’s quarters are attached to the stable and carriage room, and this is the attic for the whole thing.”

  Tables held piles and piles of old magazines. There were copies of Life magazine, the Kodachrome that had captured the brightly made-up faces of actresses sadly faded and the paper fly-specked. There were copies of Time magazine, with covers depicting men whose crisp shirt collars and carefully knotted ties testified to the wearers’ seriousness. There were copies of National Geographic, with the unmistakable golden-yellow spines. A few people hovered over the magazines, leafing through copies here and there.

  “The Farthingales and Wentworths must never have thrown anything away,” Penny said, staring in amazement at the sight. She picked up a copy of Life, commenting, “Magazines were bigger back then.”

  An elderly man turned toward them, a copy of Life with a photo of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra on the cover. “It was all about the photography,” he said. “No Internet then.”

  Penny nodded and he went back to his magazine.

  Pamela wandered past the magazine-laden tables and set out down a zigzagging aisle that cut through heaped-up boxes, trunks, rolled-up rugs, and furniture. Halfway down, a small trunk had been tugged from the jumble that surrounded it and someone had investigated its contents, tossing as
ide doll clothes, a battered straw hat decorated with cloth flowers, and several stained and frayed dishcloths.

  Pamela wandered on and found she had made a complete circuit of the room without catching sight of anything that beckoned her to examine it further. Bettina and Penny still lingered among the magazine tables, smiling together over something they’d found in an issue of Life.

  Penny held the open magazine out as Pamela came near. The pages showed a fashion show—couture from the sixties to judge by the sleek pants and tunics, the patent-leather boots with chunky heels, and the models’ dramatic makeup and eyebrow-skimming bangs. “Laine and Sybil will love the clothes in these old magazines,” Penny said. “I’ve found a whole bunch.”

  “I’m sure Pierre will be happy to get rid of as many as you want to carry away,” Pamela said as she took the magazine and flipped through a few more pages. The show had also featured models in dresses that seemed pieced from huge squares of stiff fabric in primary colors, like ambulatory paintings in a geometric style.

  Pamela handed the magazine back and pointed toward the doorway that led to the section of attic over the stable. “I’ll be in here,” she said.

  That room featured a window at one end, in the triangular wall formed by the roof’s sloping sides. It was thus brighter, and Pamela felt more inclined to excavate its jumbled offerings. Her eye was drawn to a large wicker hamper, interesting in its own right. She lifted the top, and discovered that the contents were interesting too. The hamper contained carefully folded tablecloths. The first one she unfolded had a charming allover print of oranges, lemons, and limes, and a wide border in which citrus foliage and blossoms intertwined with more of the same fruits.

  “Forties for sure,” she murmured to herself, “or even older.” Pamela loved vintage tablecloths and a quick survey of the hamper’s remaining contents told her that she’d found many additions to her collection. Soaking in a mild bleach solution would make quick work of the yellowing that some had suffered with age.

  She returned everything to the hamper, closed it, and pulled it free from the crush of objects around it. As she did so, she dislodged a small leather suitcase that had been wedged behind it—very nice quality, like something a wealthy young woman might have owned in an era when elegant luggage was an essential mark of status. Penny might like this, she said to herself, as she set it flat on the dusty wooden floor. She clicked open the latches on either side of the handle and tipped the top back.

  She’d expected to find . . . what? Maybe more vintage tablecloths. Pamela herself had an old suitcase in her attic, and it provided a useful storage space for a favorite quilt, two sets of curtains no longer in use, and the animal-print sheets that had made up Penny’s bed until she turned ten. But the contents of this suitcase were quite different.

  As she gently sifted through the items, it seemed she had come upon a suitcase packed for a journey many decades ago and never unpacked—perhaps never even opened after the journey was completed. She came upon light dresses suitable for hot weather, with simple scoop-neck bodices and gathered skirts—like styles that teenagers had worn in the 1950s. Beneath the dresses she found underwear—decidedly unglamorous panties, bras, and slips (slips!) in sensible white cotton. Tucked here and there were flats, in white leather and black patent, and a pair of sandals, all carefully wrapped in tissue.

  Pamela checked the outside of the suitcase to see if she had overlooked any identifying tags, but there was nothing. Nor did she find anything inside the suitcase that would give a hint of its owner. The process of removing every single item and examining it closely, however, led her to an interesting discovery. A small clutch purse lay at the very bottom of the suitcase, white straw with a metal frame. Pamela snapped it open.

  Inside was a handkerchief, white lawn, trimmed with delicate lace. No initial—that would be too obvious! But something—or rather some things—were wrapped inside. Pamela could feel small lumps through the cloth. She slowly unfolded the handkerchief, not wanting anything to land on the floor, with its gaps and uneven surface. Then a small circlet of beads appeared, cupped in the palm of her hand and cushioned by a layer of white lawn. Half the beads were plain white, but the others spelled out a word, one letter to a bead: W-E-N-T-W-O-R-T-H.

  Chapter Ten

  Pamela had seen such things before. When she gave birth to Penny, the mother-daughter connection had been marked by simple plastic bands on babies’ and mothers’ wrists. But she’d once looked through the old baby book in which her mother’s parents had preserved mementoes of their daughter’s birth and childhood. Bead bracelets were indestructible, sanitary, and easily personalized, and until the fifties and a bit beyond, babies had worn them until taken home by their parents. Or by someone with a rightful claim to them.

  Pamela suspected that she was looking at the only souvenir Millicent’s mother had been able to salvage of the baby who grew up to become Coot. She’d taken the suitcase with her to Texas on the visit to the aunt, the excuse for her sudden disappearance from Timberley. The dresses had fit for a while, then maternity garments had been supplied, no doubt. Preparing to return home, she’d packed the dresses she came with and the sad reminder of why she’d gone to Texas. But she hadn’t had the heart to revisit anything about the trip by unpacking at the other end. So the suitcase had gone to the attic and there it had stayed.

  “Hey, Mom!” came an eager voice from somewhere on the other side of the crowded space. “Look what I found!” As Penny rounded a corner bearing three large, flat books, Pamela wrapped the bracelet back in the handkerchief and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans.

  “Awesome old suitcase,” Penny observed when she reached Pamela’s side. “What’s in it?”

  “Nothing much,” Pamela said, tapping on it to make sure it was closed securely. The clothes had definite vintage appeal, but the idea of Penny wearing the outfits in which Millicent’s mother had awaited the birth of the child she had to give away was just . . . disturbing. “What do you have there?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Yearbooks from Morton-Bidwell. This is 1953.” Penny held the top one toward Pamela. The book was bound in navy with the words Morton-Bidwell in Gothic lettering on the front and on the spine. “The boys all look so old, with their hair short and combed just so. And the girls’ hair looks like they must have spent a lot of time on it. And they all wore uniforms. But the girls’ uniforms are kind of cute—plaid skirts and blazers.” Pamela thumbed through the yearbook. “Somebody who lived here must have gone there,” Penny said.

  “Lots of Wentworths and Farthingales went there, I expect.” Pamela closed the yearbook and handed it back. “They were those kinds of families.” Morton-Bidwell was the fancy private school where Charlotte taught.

  “I found two more,” Penny said. “From 1954 and 1956. But there’s no 1955. I wonder what happened to it.”

  Pamela was pretty sure she knew why there was no 1955. Millicent’s mother would have been visiting her aunt in Texas when the yearbooks came out that year.

  The suitcase and its interesting contents would have to be reported to Bettina, but Pamela wasn’t sure she wanted Penny to be part of that discussion. Of course Penny knew that people who weren’t in a position to raise children sometimes produced them anyway. But Penny had been upstairs when Charlotte told Knit and Nibble about the woman with the DNA claim on Millicent’s estate. And she had been far away talking with Wilfred when Coot introduced herself to Pamela and Bettina. Pamela was reluctant to have her daughter involved any more deeply than she already was in the mystery of who might have killed Millicent and why. So she decided to wait until she and Bettina were alone before she brought out the little bead bracelet.

  “I think I’ve seen enough in here,” Penny said, “and I’ll leave these old yearbooks for someone else.” She set them atop the nearest pile.

  “Where’s Bettina?” Pamela asked as she picked up the hamper.

  “Still out in that big room.” Penny pointed towar
d the opening in the partition. “She found some old pottery.”

  When Pamela and Penny reached her, Bettina was sitting on a wooden box a little ways away from a huge dresser topped with a looming heap of men’s suits and shoes. She was surrounded by an assortment of garden pots, glazed ceramic in various shapes and sizes. Most were still grimy inside, with a film of dry soil left from some long-discarded plant that had brightened a patio or porch.

  “There are boxes and boxes of these,” Bettina said. “Won’t they look nice on my patio this summer, with geraniums? Or I could plant herbs like you have, for Wilfred’s cooking. I just have to decide which ones to take.”

  “They are nice.” Pamela picked up a large pot with a fluted edge and a colorful geometric pattern that evoked Mexican tile.

  “Take some,” Bettina urged. “For your herbs.”

  “Take the ones you like first,” Pamela said. “You found them. I’ll browse around a little more, and when you’re through I’ll pick out a few.”

  Penny knelt next to Bettina to help as she began to fit smaller pots inside larger ones. A box that Bettina had emptied sat ready to receive those selected for a new life on an Arborville patio.

  Pamela wandered back toward the front of the large room, picking her way around open boxes tugged from their piles, then abandoned, and people who halted without warning to examine something that suddenly seemed interesting. When she reached the magazine tables she veered off toward the partition that marked off the section of attic above the groom’s quarters.

  A doorway with no door led to another overcrowded space, divided into smaller spaces by partitions with rough shelving built into them. Most of the shelves visible from the doorway held books, old hardbound books with dark, solid-color bindings, as if at some point the space had been designated a library, perhaps overflow from a grand library in the main house. But other shelves held random objects, like hatboxes and a tangle of mousetraps.