One end of the long room was filled with furniture, much of it Pat's. He had had his own house before he moved in with Ruth after their marriage, and-Karen now realized-much of his furniture had originally belonged to his mother. She had literally to drag Julie away from a set of dining room chairs with needlepoint seats.
The linens, clothing, and rugs had been arranged along one wall, separated from the bulkier objects. Some of the clothing was packed in trunks and cartons; others hung from rods laid across the exposed beams. The latter were enclosed in garment bags, and a strong smell of mothballs wafted out as Julie began opening them.
"Let's take them downstairs," she said breathlessly. "It's too dark up here to see properly."
"Julie, I told you-"
"You said I could look. You know, linens and clothing ought to be aired and cleaned from time to time. You'd be doing your aunt a favor, really. If she ever does decide to sell them-"
"She'll never sell them. She doesn't need the money."
"But you do. I knew your dear husband when he was teaching at Georgetown; unless he's changed a lot, you'll have to fight him for every penny."
Karen's expression warned Julie that this time she had gone too far. "At least you can wear some of them, can't you? Surely Ruth wouldn't object to that."
"Of course not. She's the most generous-"
"Then let's take them downstairs and see what we- I mean, you-have. We'll play dress-up. Come on, it'll be fun."
Fun was not the word Karen would have chosen; Julie's open, unconcealed greediness cast a pall over the whole business. But she found the clothing unexpectedly fascinating. Thanks to Ruth's housewifely instincts and Cousin Hattie's lavish use of camphor, the dresses and coats were in excellent condition. Karen had done enough sewing to appreciate fine tailoring and beautiful fabrics, and only a woman totally devoid of imagination could fail to appreciate the charm of the ultra-feminine flowing frocks that dated back to Hattie's distant girlhood.
Karen wondered if fond nostalgia for a lost figure had inspired Hattie to preserve some of the dresses. Certainly they had been made for a willowy-slim woman which, to judge from the wardrobe of her middle age, Hattie had no longer been. Her favorites, packed in oiled paper and the inevitable camphor, ranged from a black-and-white calico day dress, every stitch sewn by hand, to a white batiste creation dripping with lace and eyelet insertion. Perhaps, Karen thought, they commemorated events in Hattie's life, happy times or sentimental moments. Parties and picnics, strolls by the river with a mustachioed gallant who looked into her eyes and told her how pretty she looked in white lace and ruffles…
Ruth's castoffs dated from the fifties and sixties, and Julie assured Karen they were also worth money. Money was the operative word for Julie, not sentiment. "It's a pity you can't wear your aunt's size," she said tactlessly, stroking a blue wool suit. "This is a Chanel copy, and a good one. Here, try this dress on. It looks like it belonged to the old lady after she got fat. Real silk chiffon."
"It makes me look like the old lady," Karen grumbled, as she slipped the dress on. "Where would I wear silk chiffon?"
"To work. Vintage adds a nice touch. Actually, it's a little big for you. How amazing."
Karen bit her lip. There was no sense in sparring with Julie; she was as subtle as an elephant, and her hide was as thick. "I could fix it," she said. "Take the skirt off, put in a few tucks and pleats…"
"I didn't know you could sew. That could be useful," Julie added thoughtfully.
Karen didn't ask her to elucidate. "I used to make all my own clothes. Academic salaries aren't that high, and Jack didn't want me to work, so…"
So she went to faculty dinners and receptions in homemade clothes while Jack ran up big bills at the best men's shops in the city. She didn't mind. Jack was such a good-looking man, and of course men couldn't make their own clothes. Her skill improved with practice, and she was naively proud of her work-until the night of the President's reception. It was the first formal gathering they had attended after Jack accepted the job in Dubuque. He was wearing the dinner jacket he had got at Brooks Brothers before they left Washington. She had slaved over her dress-raw silk, on sale for only eight dollars a yard… Jack said it looked homemade. Very nice, my dear, but why didn't you buy something a little more sophisticated?
Suddenly Karen realized she was shaking and dry-mouthed with anger. Strange. She hadn't been angry at the time, only embarrassed.
The memory came and went so quickly that Julie, never the most sensitive of women, was unaware of her distraction. Julie had opened a box filled with time-yellowed lingerie and was emitting little moans of delight. "Victorian and Edwardian. Look at the handmade lace, the embroidery…I could get a hundred and fifty for this petticoat!"
It was then that the idea was born, sparked by Julie's greed and founded in long-suppressed resentment. Why you? Karen thought. Why not me?
THE
hamburgers Julie had brought were reduced to grease and sogginess by the time they sat down to supper. Karen nibbled on salad; Julie absently devoured the disgusting sandwich, too intent on her own thoughts to notice what she was eating. Karen knew she was planning a new assault, but had not yet determined the right strategy. They parted with mutually insincere expressions of affection. Karen locked up, turned off the lights, and dragged her weary body up to bed.
Of course it wouldn't have occurred to Julie to help clean up the mess, Karen thought crossly. Her bedroom was as littered as it had been during her college days. She couldn't even get into bed; it was piled high with "whites," as Julie called them-petticoats frothy with lace, nightgowns trimmed with crochet and tatting, camisoles and corset covers and funny, voluminous bloomers. Karen was tempted to push the whole lot onto the floor-they all needed washing anyway-but habit prevailed over exhaustion, and she began folding the garments and returning them to the cartons from which Julie had taken them. They were in poorer condition than the carefully packed dresses, but Julie had assured her the dust and dirt would wash out.
When she came upon the petticoat Julie had priced with such extravagance, she examined it curiously. It was beautifully made; eight inches of narrow tucks circled the lower part of the skirt, and the wide double flounces were trimmed with yards of knitted lace, fine as cobwebs. Karen held it against her and looked in the mirror. Crumpled and stained as it was, it conjured up images of romantic femininity, like the scent of ghostly, faded perfume; as she turned from side to side, the wide flounce swung out in a coquettish flare.
The lace had pulled away from the fabric in several places and there was one rent in its web. She could fix that. Julie had insisted the stains would bleach out. Dark brownish stains, like dried blood… Surely no one would pack a bloodstained garment, though. The stains must be those of rust.
A hundred and fifty dollars?
Karen was almost ready for bed when the telephone rang. She wondered irritably who could be calling so late, and then realized it wasn't quite ten o'clock. She was tempted not to answer. If the caller was Julie, primed with new excuses for plundering Ruth…
However, the caller was not Julie. Ruth's soft voice was blurred by background noises of laughter and conversation. She and Pat were spending the night with friends in New York before flying out the following morning.
"You weren't asleep, were you?" Ruth asked.
"Good heavens, no." Karen laughed lightly. "It's only ten o'clock."
"I forgot to ask you to please call the repairman to come look at the dryer. You'll find his number in the file."
"What's wrong with the dryer? It was working fine yesterday."
"Sometimes it makes a funny noise when it spins."
"I didn't hear any funny noise."
"It's intermittent," Ruth said.
Karen couldn't help smiling. There was nothing wrong with the dryer; that was only Ruth's excuse for calling. Now she could ask the questions she really wanted to ask. Did you eat something? Are you nervous alone? Are you sad, afraid, lonely?
"Okay," she said. "Don't worry, I'll look after things."
"And yourself."
"And myself."
"I hope you had a nice quiet day."
"Julie came for supper."
"Good."
"Not so good," Karen said perversely. "She's had her eye on your attic for a long time. She barely waited till you were out of the house before she pounced."
"Oh, Karen, I'm sure she came because she's so fond of you-"
"Ruth, darling, you needn't stroke my ego. Julie is as fond of me as she is of anyone, but she is primarily a merchant. She drooled over those chairs of Pat's."
"Well, she can't have them. Honestly," Ruth said indignantly. "Of all the nerve, making use of your friendship to pry around in my house-"
The sentence ended in a gasp and a burst of smothered laughter, and Ruth's voice was replaced by that of her husband. Karen moved the receiver a few inches from her ear.
"What did you say to infuriate my wife?" Pat demanded. "You know I can't allow her to be upset, she's a holy terror when she's angry."
Karen heard Ruth's voice in the background. "Give me that phone, Patrick MacDougal!"
"Only if you let me listen in."
Sounds of a scuffle ensued; Karen waited resignedly until the MacDougals had arrived at a consensus. Then Ruth said somewhat breathlessly, "Don't let that pushy female have a thing!"
"I
will defend your property with my last drop of blood," Karen assured her. "You don't mind if I wear some of the clothes, do you?"
"Clothes? What clothes?"
"There are piles of them. Some of yours, some that must have belonged to Cousin Hattie, and even older things. Vintage clothing is in style, and I thought-"
"Oh, those old things. I was going to give them to Goodwill, but I never got around to it."
Pat interrupted with a comment Karen didn't catch; it was obviously a rude remark about Ruth's refusal to throw anything away. Suspecting that another prolonged bout of affectionate horseplay was about to take place, Karen said loudly, "Would you give them to me?"
That stopped the argument. After a blank silence, Ruth said, "Darling girl, you can have anything in the house. It will all be yours and Sara's one day-"
"But not for a helluva long time," said Pat.
"Stop it, Pat. Darling, you'd be doing me a favor if you cleaned that whole lot out. Take what you can use and call Salvation Army or someone to pick up the rest. And while they are at it, they can clean out Pat's study. Just tell them to take everything-"
"If one scrap of paper is missing," Pat shouted, "I'll put the grandfather of all curses on ye!"
"Are you sure you meant to throw them away?" Karen persisted.
"Absolutely. What do you have in mind?"
Karen explained. "I suppose it's presumptuous of me to think I could open my own shop," she ended. "But I've learned a lot from Julie, and with your things to get me started… Julie says acquiring stock is one of the major problems."
"Darling, I think it's a marvelous idea. Of course you can do it."
"Just don't set up shop in the parlor," Pat said. "It isn't zoned commercial."
"You know I wouldn't do that."
"You have no sense of humor, damn it. Go ahead, become a seller of rags and bones; judging from what I see in shop windows, some people will buy anything. Go see my mother. Maybe you can talk her into cleaning out
her
attic."
"I intend to call her, of course-but not for that."
"Why not for that? I've been trying to get her to move out of that mausoleum on R Street for years. She says she can't because none of the retirement homes will let her take that damned dog--Hey," Pat said brightly.
"Oh, no," Karen exclaimed. "Oh no, you don't, Pat."
"Why not? It's a great idea. A dog would be protection for you."
"Not that dog. It bites everybody who walks in the house."
"That's what a guard dog is supposed to do."
"It bit
me
last time I visited your mother."
"You can train it not to do that."
"How?"
"Club, cattle prod? God, that is really a terrific idea. I can't imagine why I didn't think of it before. I'll call the old girl right now. Come on, Ruth, you've been on the phone long enough, everything is fine, right? Good night, Karen."
The phone went dead, cutting off Ruth's halfhearted protest.
If she had had the telephone number of the friends with whom Pat and Ruth were staying, Karen would have called back. Ordinarily her uncle's antics filled her with a blend of amusement and outrage. Tonight she was not amused. If she knew Pat-and she did-he would be carrying out his threat this very moment, explaining his brilliant scheme to his mother in an enthusiastic bellow. Karen could have killed him. She didn't want a dog. She particularly didn't want Mrs. MacDougal's dog.
She got into bed and turned out the light, still fuming, but after a time she realized she was probably getting upset about nothing. Mrs. MacDougal would yell right back at Pat. She wouldn't give up her home, filled with a seventy-year accumulation of memories and bric-a-brac, for the sterile safety of a nursing home. Not Mrs. Mac. At ninety-three she had more zest for living in her little finger than some people of twenty-seven going on twenty-nine had in their whole bodies.
A board creaked in the hall. The wind was rising; a leafy branch brushed the windowpane with an eerie rustle. A white lingerie dress flung over the back of a chair shimmered dimly in the darkness, limp as a swooning Victorian maiden.
A hundred and fifty. There were at least six petticoats in the box, the same number of nightgowns. Say a hundred dollars average on the petticoats… A hundred times six, plus six times fifty-perhaps seventy-five…
Karen had fully intended to indulge in the long-awaited fit of weeping, but she was so busy adding and multiplying she fell asleep before she had shed a single tear.
THE
ringing of the telephone was a vulgar intrusion into the blissful vacuum of sleep. Karen opened her eyes. Rain whispered at the window, and the room was gray with shadows. The illuminated dial of the clock read six-thirty.
The phone went on ringing. Karen squinted unbelievingly at the clock and pulled the sheet over her head. The thin fabric did nothing to mute the sound; putting her fingers in her ears didn't help much either. Who on earth would have the nerve to call at this hour? Pat? He was on his way to Borneo by now. Julie? She never got up at six-thirty. In fact, there was only one person she knew who rose at that unearthly hour.
"Damn," Karen said. She took her fingers out of her ears and reached for the phone. She knew it would go on ringing until she answered.
"Hello?" she croaked.
Julie and Mrs. MacDougal had only one thing in common: their reluctance to waste time on meaningless amenities. "I hear you're going into business," Mrs. Mac said brightly.
"Not right this minute," Karen muttered.
"What? Well, you ought to be thinking about it right this minute. Time is money. Come for breakfast and we'll talk about it."
Karen had been taught to be courteous to her elders, and Mrs. MacDougal was as much her elder as any living person could be. Besides, she adored Mrs. MacDougal. At least she adored her most of the time. The gloomy skies outside, the corresponding gloom that enveloped her spirits, and a hideous fear that she was about to be bullied by not one, but two, MacDougals made it necessary for her to summon up every ounce of good will and good manners in order to refrain from screaming at her old (in every sense of the word) friend.
"I was planning to call you later," she began.
"No time like the present. Just slip on a raincoat and come on over here."
Mrs. MacDougal's bland assumption that she was already up and dressed would have amused her under far different circumstances. While she was trying to decide whether to admit to slothfulness or find some other excuse for delay, Mrs. MacDougal went on, "I was about to suggest some such scheme myself. Delighted that you thought of it too. Now I happen to own a little place that would be perfect for your shop-it's on Thirty-first, just off M Street-and I've been thinking of names. Something evocative but not cutesy. Dreams of Yesterday, or-"
"Mrs. Mac," Karen said desperately. "You're very kind, but I… It was just an idea. I wasn't serious. You know Pat, he always jumps on careless remarks and blows them up into big dramas. I can't… I don't know anything about…"
"Nonsense. What you mean is that you've developed cold feet."
"No, I mean I've come to my senses. It was a crazy idea, and now that I've had time to think about it-"
"Crazy ideas are the best ideas," said Mrs. MacDougal. "Child, I know exactly what you are going through. Your pride has been mashed flatter than a pancake; there is nothing more humiliating to a woman than to have a man tell her he doesn't want her-especially a worthless, low-down creature like Jack. The next few months are going to be hell. You'll be up one minute, and way down the next. But take my word for it-if you decide on a course of action and stick to it, through hell and high water, something will always happen to shake you out of the depths. Now put on your clothes and get over here before I come and fetch you."
The MacDougal house on R Street was almost invisible from the sidewalk; only the massive chimneys showed above the trees that surrounded it, and a high wall enclosed the grounds, which filled an entire city block. It was one of the few remaining mansions of George Town, half a century older than the capital city of which it had become an appendage (a word Georgetowners past and present would have indignantly repudiated).
The gates were closed, but a smaller entrance stood invitingly ajar. Karen shook her head at such carelessness, but as she approached, a voice made robotlike by electrical circuits squeaked, "Good morning, Miss Karen. Please close the gate after you have entered. It locks automatically."
Karen returned the greeting. The closed-circuit television was a new addition, but she recognized the voice of Joseph, Mrs. MacDougal's butler. He must be almost as old as she; the other servants were equally superannuated. Pat was right, it was high time his mother gave up the house, for security reasons if no other. Its museum-quality collections of furniture, fine art, and silver were an irresistible lure to professional thieves, and the aged staff would present no obstacles to a team of burglars.
Like the gate, the front door stood wide open and Joseph waited on the steps, beaming from ear to ear. Ignoring his formal bow, she threw her arms around him and hugged him, and felt a pang at the frailty of the body she clasped. She knew she was the darling of the household and accepted the fact with humility; it was not her own graces that endeared her, but the fact that she and her sister were as close to grandchildren as Mrs. MacDougal would ever have. Pat was an only child, and he had married late in life.
She suspected that Joseph was as shocked by the change in her as she was by his aging, but he was far too well-bred to let his feelings show. He bowed her into the house and helped her off with her coat, tsk-tsking over how wet she was. "You should not have walked in such weather, Miss Karen. Had Mrs. Mac informed me earlier of your coming, I would have sent the car around."
"Sent?" Karen repeated, with an affectionate smile. "I thought you refused to let anyone else drive for Mrs. Mac."
A shadow of vexation crossed Joseph's dark, patrician features. "I regret to inform you, Miss Karen, that the absurd laws of this municipality have forbidden me that activity. However, there is a young person-"
Before he could go on, a parrotlike shriek proclaimed the arrival of Mrs. MacDougal. She wore one of the fantastic garments for which she had long been famous in Washington society. Karen was accustomed to her hostess's eccentricities in dress-Mrs. MacDougal had once received her in a Cossack uniform, complete with slung pelisse and furry hat-but this ensemble reached new heights of bizarreness. It appeared to be a wedding gown of ivory satin, the low-cut bodice encrusted with pearls and brilliants, the skirt overlaid with panels of lace. The effect was marred not only by Mrs. MacDougal's face- which, as her son had once remarked, resembled that of one of the handsomer Egyptian mummies-but by the patter of pearls falling from the bodice and the fact that the dress had been made for a taller, more full-bodied woman.
As Mrs. MacDougal clasped Karen in an affectionate embrace, a perfect hail of pearls splattered onto the floor. Karen gave a cry of distress. "Your beautiful gown!"
Mrs. MacDougal grinned broadly. "My wedding dress. Never think it, would you? I seem to have shrunk. Did you ever read
She?"
"No," Karen said, bewildered.
"Immortal woman," Mrs. Mac explained. "Bathed in the fire of Life-two thousand years old-superbly beautiful. Went back into the fire, reversed the process- aged two thousand years in five minutes. Nasty. Felt like that myself when I tried on this dress."
"You look wonderful."
Mrs. MacDougal guffawed. "Age cannot wither nor custom stale my magnificent variety. Or something like that. Let me get out of this antique before it collapses completely. I just put it on to give you a sample of my wares."
She yanked at the dress, and a shower of tiny satin-covered buttons joined the pearls littering the floor. Karen caught at the crumpling folds with careful hands, and Mrs. MacDougal stepped out of the dress. Under it she wore purple jogging pants and a sleeveless, low-cut T-shirt emblazoned in multicolored sequins with a motto so extremely vulgar that Karen's eyes literally popped. Joseph was well accustomed to his mistress's habits; he took the wedding dress from Karen's palsied grasp, and as Mrs. MacDougal escorted her out of the room she saw him advancing on the scattered ornaments with a whisk broom and dustpan, his countenance bland as cream.
Mrs. MacDougal led Karen along a corridor. "Decided to close most of the house last year," she explained. "Too much for Joseph and the others. Moved my bedroom downstairs. Easier for everybody."
The room they entered had been one of the small parlors. It had French doors opening onto a terrace and the famous Japanese garden. Mist blurred the outlines of the bridge and the pagoda and turned the miniature waterfall into a swaying phantom form, but the room was bright and cheerful with its red satin draperies and rose-spattered wallpaper and every light blazing. A small table was set for breakfast. Every other piece of furniture in the room, including the grand piano, was strewn with clothing.
"Show and tell," shouted Mrs. MacDougal, as Karen stared. "Got it out this morning. Lots more where that came from."
The collection resembled Ruth's only in the variety of styles represented, from the beautiful hand-worked lingerie of the Edwardian period to the notorious silver caftan and turban Mrs. MacDougal had worn on her first meeting with her future daughter-in-law. Ruth still hadn't gotten over the shock of that caftan; she talked about it to this day.
But these were no designer copies-they were the originals. One glance would have made that plain to any woman with the slightest sense of fashion. Karen touched a flapper dance dress whose crystal beads shimmered like fragments of ice, and bent over to read the label. "Balenciaga," she said.
Mrs. MacDougal nodded. "There are a couple of Worths around somewhere. He made my trousseau. I gave some things to the cleaning woman-"
Karen let out an involuntary but heartfelt groan. "You gave Worth gowns to the cleaning woman? But he was-he designed for all the royal houses of Europe and England."
"There's still a lot left. I was quite a clotheshorse in my day." Mrs. Mac indicated a white net dress over-embroidered and banded with lace. "I had dozens of those-proper wear for innocent young maidens back then. And this…" She lifted a coat of gold-and-silver brocade whose collar and wide sleeves dripped sable. "I wore this to
The Girl from Utah
at the Knickerbocker Theater in 1914." She began to croon in a loud tuneless voice. "La-da-de-da-dah, da-da-da-da-"
"Jerome Kern?" Karen said, grinning.
"Right. See, you have a feeling for the antique. What's the term-vintage?"
"These aren't vintage, these are classics-museum pieces." Karen spread her hands in a gesture of denial and appreciation. "I can't accept-"
"Who said I was giving them to you?" Mrs. MacDougal's deep-set black eyes sparkled wickedly. "The markup is about two hundred percent, isn't it? I'll collect my third, never fear."
Karen laughed helplessly. "You're impossible."
"Thank you. Let's eat, shall we? I'm starved." She lifted a silver cover and steam rose from a yellow foam of scrambled eggs framed by sausages.
"I certainly don't need to eat," Karen said. "I'm overweight."
"I'll bet you've started to lose it. Your appetite isn't too hot these days, is it? A little queasy all the time? I had a friend," said Mrs. MacDougal reminiscently, "who lived for a year after her divorce on gin, smoked oysters, and artichoke hearts."
"You're making that up."
"Child, I don't have to make up bizarre stories. People do stranger things than any writer can invent, and after ninety-odd years I've seen it all. She lost twenty pounds," Mrs. MacDougal added. "Not that I recommend her method, mind you. Have a sausage. After breakfast we'll go around and look at the shop I have in mind."
"Mrs. Mac, it's out of the question for me to open in Georgetown. Rents and taxes are sky-high. I'll have to look around in the suburbs-Gaithersburg, Rockville, Falls Church. That's what Julie did; she only moved to Georgetown a few years ago, and I think she's regretting it."
"I agree," Mrs. MacDougal said calmly.
"You do? But you said-"
"Oh, I just threw that out to see whether you had forgotten to use your brains. I'm glad to find that you haven't. What are your plans?"
Karen wasn't aware that she had made any plans. However, prompted by encouraging grunts and nods of approval, she heard herself glibly propounding schemes that must have developed while she slept; she certainly hadn't consciously considered them during her waking moments. Trips to museums to study costume and find materials on textile treatment and preservation, weekend visits to outlying towns looking for a suitable location and checking out future sources such as local auctions and yard sales… By the time she finished breakfast she realized she had a campaign mapped out, at least in broad outline, and she looked incredulously at Mrs. MacDougal, who was licking her fingers after eating six sausages.
She's a witch, Karen thought-a genuine, eighteen-carat witch. How did she know what I was thinking when I didn't even know myself? Or did she put the ideas into my head? No wonder Pat became interested in the history of magic and superstition. He had been inspired by watching his mother in action.
"It sounds as if you have everything under control," Mrs. MacDougal announced. "As for sources, I can help there; I have several friends who adore picking up an extra buck or two on the side."
"I'll have to pay you a commission."
"How much?" Mrs. MacDougal asked hopefully.
Karen started to laugh and then thought better of it. Mrs. MacDougal wasn't kidding. "Are you sure?" she ventured, indicating the finery littering the room.
"Quite sure. I wouldn't give my bossy son the satisfaction of admitting it, but he's right; this house is too much for me and my servants. Joseph would rather die than omit a single one of the rituals he considers essential, and one of these days he will-die, I mean. The rest of them are as old as Joseph-Rachel, my maid-you remember Rachel?-and the cook, and the others. I've tried to get them to retire, but they won't; and to be honest, I couldn't imagine life without them. They're my friends. So I'm going to sell, probably at the end of the summer."
"Pat doesn't want the house?"
"What would he do with it?"
"But it's a shame to have this lovely place pass out of the family after so many years-"