Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (101 page)

“Oh?”

“You deserve it too, you’re a most remarkable young woman, amiable is what I mean, beauty is skin-deep, but you’ve got more than that. A good,
decent
face, and a kind heart. I’m leaving Margo a fortune, she said, and I asked her, well, will she
appreciate
it? Now I’ve no doubts. You’ve been kind to me this afternoon, you got rid of that
tiresome
old man, that blackbird with the turned-around collar. I know his heart’s in the right place, but he’s so damned, deadly dull, and now we can have a good chat.”

“Well, I — ” Margo started to say, but was interrupted by a regally lifted hand. “I know you’ll never misuse what she left you,” Mrs. Pride said. “You’ll put the money to good use. I can’t see you spending it on frivolous things; any fool could see you have more intelligence than that.”

“As a matter of fact,” Margo said gently, “there’s no money, Mrs. Pride.”

“Yes, there is, there’s a great deal of it, she told me so. Didn’t they inform you, my dear?”

“My aunt left me this house, that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“I know she left you the house! She always said she would. Of course! I’m talking about the money.”

“I guess she did have a great deal of money at one time, Mrs. Pride. But the years depleted it. She lived well, but she lived for a long time. There’s no money now.”

“Oh yes there is,” Mrs. Pride said positively. “Now, I’m not saying that the others know about it. But there is, and I may have my crazy moments, but she and I were friends for many, many years. There’s a fortune, and she told me so. Ask Mr. Bach.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“He said she died almost penniless.”

The cackle came again, and the old eyes gleamed with excitement. “Tell it to the Marines,” Mrs. Pride said. “So the old goat wasn’t in on it! Now, I just wonder what she did with all that money? How much did she say? Yes, I remember. Fifty thousand dollars, yes, and she said with time it would be even more, that it was an investment and could only appreciate with the years. You mark my words, Margo, there’s money here somewhere, and it belongs to you.”

“Well, perhaps. And now, Mrs. Pride, I suppose I must start getting ready for my … for my evening.”

“Oh yes, yes indeed. Well, the tea was very good, you tell Pompey I said so. And you won’t forget what I said, don’t listen to that rickety old Jim Bach, he’s got some age on him and he never did know his knee from his elbow anyway. There’s a fortune somewhere here, somewhere in this house.”

“Where, under the floorboards?” Margo asked, smiling.

“Oh, I don’t think she’d do a thing like that,” Mrs. Pride said. “It’s in a reticule, or some simple place like that. I daresay she didn’t want the others to get their hands on it.”

“The others?”

“The lawyer, the boys, everyone. It belonged to you and you’ll find it, never fear. You’re still in a hurry, are you?”

“Well, rather. We’ll get together soon again.”

“Tomorrow?”

Pompey popped out of the kitchen and came down the long hall. “Bye bye, Mrs. Pride,” he said, opening the door for her. “Thanks for dropping in. Mind you be careful on the way home.”

“I certainly shall. The roads were slippery with ice on the way over. I drove at a snail’s pace.”

She looked out and raised astonished eyes. “Why, no, it’s summer, isn’t it?” she said. “Oh, I am so glad about
that
, I do so dislike winter. Well, then, thanks for the tea.”

She took Margo’s hand and gripped it. “A lovely afternoon,” she said. “Very lovely. Don’t tell the others what I said,” she added, with a conspiratorial look, and waved to Pompey. Then she trotted down the front steps and got into her ancient electric, its speed limit twenty or thirty miles an hour, and tooled down the driveway.

Oh, dear Mrs. Pride!

In her room, resting, she heard doors opening and closing, finally got up and showered, then changed. When she went downstairs Norma was there, arranging flowers in bowls.

“Oh, you’re here, how nice,” Margo said gratefully. “And the flowers look beautiful, Norma.”

“You think so? Come on, let’s do the dining room.”

She gathered up an armload of blooms from a newspaper spread on the floor, and in the other room fell to work, arranging, rearranging, and then standing back. “You think just a touch more of the fern?”

“To me it looks perfect.”

“You may be right. Too much of a muchness is … too much of a muchness.” She laughed, and held out her hands. “I’ll want to wash,” she said.

“Use my bathroom.”

“May I? And will you keep me company?”

“Yes, certainly.”

In the bathroom off Margo’s room they chatted while Norma soaped her hands, applied perfume to her neck and forehead, and did a few things to her face. “Too much color?” she asked.

“No, not at all. You have such wonderful skin.”

“You should see me in the morning. There, I guess that will do it.” She stood back and stared, then packed up her make-up kit. “Drinks won’t be amiss,” she said. “I had quite a day.”

“Did you, Norma?”

“Yes. I was born lazy and yet I work harder than anyone I know. Isn’t life odd? Oh, I
do
have too much color on!”

“No, it’s really just right, Norma.”

“Would your Switzerland school approve it?”

“That was, alas, long ago.”

“Everything was long ago. What’s for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know, it’s nice to be surprised.”

“It seems to me I smell roast lamb.”

“I hope so, I’m fond of lamb.”

“Me too. Let’s go, shall we?”

“After you, my dear Alphonse.”

It was roast lamb, with a delicious, crusty outside. The potatoes were
au gratin
, there were buttermilk biscuits, and for dessert rhubarb pie.

“What did I do today?” Margo said, when asked. “For one thing, I visited Douglas at the farm.”

“Did you now,” Norma said, smiling, but John was silent on the subject.

“He seems to be doing quite well,” Margo said. “Don’t you think so, John?”

“So far,” he agreed.

“Don’t you approve of his venture?”

“It isn’t
that
,” he said. “It’s just … a drought, a wet season, a cyclone, if you will, could wipe him out. Insurance doesn’t cover an act of God.”

“I think Doug’s terrific,” Norma said. “And so do you. I can see that, Margo. And then what did you do?”

“Came home and found the minister here, and Mrs. Pride, who gave me the electrifying news. It seems I’ve been left a fortune.”

“Really?” John said, smiling.

“Her exact words.”

“Did she say where it was?”

“No.”

“Poor old soul,” Norma said. “If you come across it, buy me a steak dinner with champagne and caviar?”

“It’s a promise.”

“Well, until that there fortune shows up, I’ll make the most of being here for such time as God sees fit. Time’s almost up for old Pomp. Today Brand Manor, tomorrow Missus Alberson’s rooming house.”

“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
John murmured.

“I don’t know what that means, but it would sound dirty coming from anyone but you, Mr. John.”

“Pompey,
darling
,” Margo said, smiling, and Norma laughed.

“There’s only one Pompey,” she said. “And I love every inch of him.”

“The feeling’s mutual, Miss Norma.”

Later, they played canasta on a card table. Margo kept looking at John, wondering why his face was so different from his brother’s. It was the expression, she decided. Sober John, laughing Douglas. They finished the game, had brandy and some idle conversation; then Norma drove home, and the house became quiet. John locked up; Margo went upstairs and roved restlessly in her room. This was her home, her only home. And, by a quirk of fate, it now belonged to her. She gazed at herself in a mirror, without really seeing the face reflected there, and then prepared for bed, where the white curtains, lifted by a soft breeze, billowed inwards. A bullfrog croaked, tree toads sang. She slept and then woke, thinking she was in the Provence, in France, with the cicadas singing.
No, I’m here
, she told herself, and slept again, an arm flung out over the coverlet.

• • •

It came so suddenly that she jerked in her bed. Her head raised from the pillow.
What was that?

And knew instantly.

It was the telephone.

Darkness outside, only the faint light of a half moon. Darkness … she looked at her bedside clock. It was a few minutes to one, and the telephone was ringing on the landing.

No
, she thought, stiffening.
Don’t let it be that again.

The bell shrilled, insistent.
I
won’t answer
, she told herself, pulling the sheet over her head.
I
won’t, I won’t.

It stopped after a while, and she pushed back the sheet. Lay, wide awake now, waiting. Five minutes later it rang again. Pealing outside in the thick dark, angering her, frightening her. “Please,” she said aloud. “Please don’t do this …”

It stopped.

But it will ring again
, she thought. She knew it, of course. Of course she knew it. And stifled a scream as it rang again. Ring … ring … ring …

She sprang up and dashed outside, picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said. “Hello. Who is this? Who is this calling me at this hour?”

Silence, but not quite silence. That faint, eerie breathing. Almost not there but
there
… a suspiration … it was like some ghastly nightmare. There was a person who chose to ring her up in the wee hours of the morning, and not say anything, simply let his presence be known. He was there, he was breathing, he was alive and horrible and —

“What do you want?” she shouted. “What do you want? If you do this again I’ll have you tracked down, don’t think I can’t! I’ll move heaven and earth …”

She broke off and listened. There it was, the sinister, quiet sound of someone breathing …

She banged the phone down. Walked up and down the hall.
Don’t let it happen again
, she prayed, walking up and down, back and forth.
It’s enough now, don’t let it happen again.

The phone rang.

Now I will truly go mad
, she thought, and ran to the instrument, looking at it, cursing it, wanting to tear it out of the wall. It rang, rang. Maddened, she plucked the sampler off the wall, GOD BLESS OUR HOME, held it in her hands and then dashed it against the door frame. The glass splintered and flew, the frame twisted and warped in her hands.

The ringing stopped.

What have I done
, she thought, and groped her way, careful of the scattered glass, to a lamp. Her room sprang into view, cozy, hospitable. She pulled some tissues out of a box in the bathroom and went out into the hall again. Painstakingly, she swiped at the floor, wiped up the splinters of glass, then picked up the sampler and laid it on top of the lowboy. It was undamaged, only the glass had shattered.

The phone rang again.

This time she grit her teeth, marched out to the corridor, took the receiver off the hook.
There,
she thought.
There. Now try to terrify me. You can ring until hell freezes over, and I won’t hear it.

Then she stalked back to her bedroom, closing the door.

In the bathroom she filled the basin and plunged her face into it. Cold, cold, good country water.

She dried her face and stood thinking. Pondering. Because it was crystal clear to her — any thinking person would have gotten the message — that someone was trying to frighten her. She didn’t know who, or why, but that ringing in the hours between dark and dawn was to scare her, to make her want to go away, to drive her from her own heritage, the house the townspeople called Brand Manor.

She left a lamp burning when she got into bed again. It attracted insects, gnats, small night moths and little flying things with gauzy green wings. She didn’t care a bit. Better the tiny pests than dark and somber dreams.

She simply couldn’t bear to lie, tense and spastic, in the dark.
It’s been a long time
, she thought,
since I had to have a night light, to protect me from nameless terrors.

Grimly, she admitted it.

Grownups had nightmares too.

Pompey had to wake her; she was dead to the world. She seemed to hear his knocking from a great distance. “It’s me, Miss Margo,” he said. “You awake? Wake up.”

She rolled over on her back. “Come in,” she said, and her voice sounded thick.

He walked in, saw her fatigued face and clucked. “You been crying,” he murmured. “But that don’t do no good, darling.”

“It was the telephone again,” she said, sitting up. “And it really got to me. Never mind, I can’t afford to flake off. Something’s going on, and I’ve got to be ready for it.”

“The telephone again?” he said, sitting down on the bed. “Again?”

“Didn’t John hear it?”

“No, or he would have said something. Me, I didn’t either. Now we got to do something about this.”

“Like what?”

“Get the law on them.”

“On who?”

“Even here there’s changes,” he said. “Crazy young kids; you don’t know what they’re up to.”

“Do you mean hopheads? But what would they have against
me?
”

“They read the papers, about you inheriting this house. Maybe they’re having some fun. I can’t think of nothing else.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. In the light of day it doesn’t seem so fearful. But I just dread night coming.”

“We’ll talk about it some more. Right now you come down for your breakfast. Griddle cakes, maple syrup. Little sausages. Come on; you can brush your teeth later.”

At the head of the stairs she reminded him of how he used to slide down the banister. “I remember,” he said. “You was a tomboy, Miss Margo.”

“It was because of the boys. Everything they did I wanted to do too, and then some.”

“Which reminds me. Mr. Douglas sent over two nice little pullets for dinner. Sent over a recipe too, something fancy, some French name to it. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Was he here?”