Another Woman's House

224 Pages·2012·1.08 MB·English

by  Eberhart Mignon G

Another Woman’s House
Mignon G. Eberhart
A MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM BOOK
To Harry and Edna Maule
with deepest affection and gratitude
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 1
IT WAS STILL ANOTHER woman’s house. Nothing in the house had changed;
nothing perhaps could change. Alice with her beauty, her grace, her unerring
taste for beauty might have put a spell upon the house and everything within it.
The room itself, a library, beautiful, gracious, was so completely a product
of Alice’s skill and taste that it suggested her almost as provocatively and as
tantalizingly as did her wide bedroom upstairs, with its windows overlooking the
Sound, and the scent of lilac sachet. Myra had entered the room one day, not
knowing it was Alice’s, seeking a loosened and banging shutter, and everything
was as if its former occupant were expected any day, any minute. The perfume
bottles glittered, the light pink cover was folded neatly on the satin-covered
chaise longue; a bit of frothy lace was caught in one of the doors to the mirrored
dress closets, the scent of lilac was everywhere, summoning up the lovely image
of Alice so poignantly that Myra felt she might speak. She had gone quickly
away.
No one, Myra had thought, ever entered that room; but obviously she was
wrong; obviously someone entered and aired and dusted it regularly.
The door to Richard’s room, adjoining, was closed and bolted. And there
was a tacit agreement, Myra knew, that Alice’s room was a guest room; actually
house guests were now rare.
The library with its wide French windows opening upon the terrace, with its
fireplace and old rugs and old books, had been a favorite room of Alice’s. She
had selected the mellow dull blue of the paneling between bookshelves, the bowl
for the yellow daffodils, the ruby-red cushions of the chair in which Myra sat.
Near Myra against the wall stood a tall secretary, its old mahogany glowing;
behind a glass section of the doors a Capo di Monte cupid, which Alice’s hands
had placed in exactly that position, looked smugly and blandly at Myra. As if he
knew a secret.
As indeed, in a very horrible way, he did know a secret. An ugly little
question caught at Myra. What would he say if he could speak?
The fire crackled. The little French clock on the mantel ticked in as lively
and sprightly a way as if time had no importance. As if this were not in all
probability the last time that Myra would sit in that room, waiting for Richard. It
was, of course, too early to expect him. So much the better, for it gave her time
to rehearse again the reasons she was going to give for her decision.
And so much the better because for the last time she could sit there in the
ruby-red chair, intensely aware of the room, of its beauty and warmth and—
which, as a matter of fact, was rather odd—of its present tranquillity. She would
remember it all, later; she looked around again striving to impress every detail
upon her memory and yet knowing that there was nothing she could ever forget.
It was going to be very difficult to tell Miss Cornelia. It was going to be
difficult to tell Richard.
She got up and went to the tall yellow daffodils and rearranged them
needlessly with nervous fingers. And glanced again at the little gold French
clock; the small, gaily enameled pendulum glittered within its glass walls as it
moved quickly back and forth, marking the seconds, marking the moments,
inevitably and finally.
Four o’clock. Richard could not possibly arrive before five, even if he
happened to come out early from town.
A daffodil fell and she bent to pick it up. As she did so there was a sound of
voices from the terrace. The door was open and Myra straightened, the yellow
daffodil in her hand, in time to see Miss Cornelia’s wheel chair come into view,
then Miss Cornelia, limping defiantly beside it, with her thin, veined old hand
upon the back of it to steady herself, and then Barton, pushing the chair. Myra
went quickly to meet the small cavalcade and hold the door wider for its
entrance. “She would walk, Miss Myra,” said Barton, puffing slightly. “I
couldn’t do anything with her ladyship. She walked all the way from the
garden.”
“It’s an easy walk,” said Miss Cornelia and slid her hand through Myra’s
arm. Her bright eyes sparkled; she crooked a rather mischievous eyebrow, still
slim and dark in spite of her snow-white hair, toward the elderly butler. “As we
get older, Barton, we should eat less starch.”
Barton had got his breath. Ignoring the reflection cast on his very
substantial figure, he said patiently, “Do you wish me to help you upstairs now,
Madam?”
“No, thank you. I’ll stay down for a bit. You can put the wheel chair away,
Barton. You and Mr. Richard can carry me up later.”
“Very well, Madam.” He glanced at the clock, cast a rather fishy but
efficient eye around the room as if mentally checking on the orderliness of its
details, gave his extremely well-filled waistcoat a tug downward and addressed
himself again to the wheel chair.
“That one,” said Miss Cornelia, steering Myra toward Richard’s deep arm
chair before the fire. “Thank you, my dear.” Her small old hand relaxed as Myra
helped her down into the chair and she looked up and sighed.
Miss Cornelia—who had been Lady Carmichael for fifty of her seventy
years and, except for occasional slips which Barton permitted himself, was yet,
in that house, called Miss Cornelia—was still an attractive and distinguished-
looking woman. She was small and slight and a little, stooped with age; but her
snow-white hair was beautifully done, her wrinkled skin still soft and fragrant
looking, her delicate veined hands had slender fingernails, defiantly varnished in
scarlet. Her dark-gray eyes were bright and vivacious and altogether too
observant at times. She had been a beauty and there was still an occasional
coquettishness about her which suggested her age and generation, but she had
actually a civilized and tolerant turn of mind, active and vigorous common
sense, and a great fund of generosity and loyalty. She wore now a beige tweed
skirt and jacket, shabby, since it had outlived the war, but faultlessly tailored, a
white silk blouse knotted at her throat, pearls in her ears, sapphires on her hands
and an expression of exasperation.
“I broke that damned hip nearly two years ago, two years in June, exactly,”
she said. “Shouldn’t you think I could walk more easily by now?”
“You are really much better, darling. It takes time.”
Miss Cornelia sniffed. “Time,” she said rather grimly, “is something I am
not well supplied with.” She sighed and leaned back and reached in her pocket
for a gold cigarette case and an ivory holder. “Cigarette?”
“Not now.” Myra went to the table for a match, and returned to hold it for
the older woman. Her jeweled hands with their scarlet tips were delicate and sure
with the cigarette, her face as still and carved as the ivory holder; she leaned
forward a little toward the small flame. “Richard back yet?” she asked, looking
up at Myra.
“No.”
“Well, it’s not time, of course. Is Tim coming out this week-end?”
“I don’t know. I phoned him yesterday at the office, but the girl said he was
out of town for the day.”
“Some errand for the firm, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. The girl didn’t say. I’ll try his apartment tonight.” Myra
reached for an ash tray and put it on the arm of Miss Cornelia’s chair, and then
went back to the bowl of daffodils. Now, of course, was as good a time as any to
tell Aunt Cornelia the thing she must tell her; and Tim’s name was an opening.
But she procrastinated, dreading it. Slowly and carefully she thrust the thin, tall
green stalk of the daffodil she held among the others in the great vase. It was
even more difficult than she had anticipated.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have said it then; perhaps she would never have said
it actually; but while she hesitated, dreading it, summoning her courage to speak,
Miss Cornelia herself began it. “Myra, what’s wrong?”
The stalk caught on the long, spiky leaf of another. Miss Cornelia added
gently, “You’re worried about something. I’ve noticed it for several days. What
is it? Tim?”
It is not really easy to lie to anybody; to lie to Miss Cornelia was next to
impossible. Myra disengaged the daffodil and turned slowly to face the older
woman and still could not find the words she had to speak. Miss Cornelia,
smoking and giving her quick bright little glances, said, “Because I really think,
my dear, that there’s nothing to worry about. Tim has an aptitude for
architecture. It’s true he’s not trained but he learns quickly. He’s been rather—
well, morose lately, moody. Not like himself exactly. But that’s the effect of the
war. He’ll be all right; you’ll see.”
The lovely golden cups beside Myra sent up a clean, spicy odor. The fire
crackled softly. Miss Cornelia went on quietly, “You’ve always taken your
responsibility to Tim rather heavily, my dear. Simply because he’s your younger
brother. I was never sure that it was right of me to separate you and Tim, as I
did, but it seemed right at the time.” She looked into the fire and said rather
doubtfully, as if wishing to reassure herself, “Tim had to be in school anyway
and I wanted him to go to an American school, not an English school, and it
seemed best to take you back to London with me.” She sighed again,
thoughtfully and wistfully. “I didn’t think the war would come as it did and keep
us there so long.”
The doubt and touch of uncertainty in her manner was to Myra poignantly
moving. She cried, refuting it, “Everything you did was right! Neither of us can
ever thank you enough. You’ve been like a mother …”
“Well,” said Miss Cornelia, still looking into the fire thoughtfully but
smiling, “say grandmother.”
“You sent Tim to school; you took me home with you; you’ve done
everything for me …”
“No, that’s where you are wrong, Myra. You’ve done everything for me.”
It was like Aunt Cornelia. Myra laughed softly. “I was a child! I was
sixteen! Tim was eleven! We owe you …”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Miss Cornelia crisply. “If an aging and childless
woman can’t give herself the pleasure of taking care of the orphaned children of