Come Hell or Highball Page 2

  Was I crazy to pity her?

  The Model T rattled away through the cemetery gates.

  “Dear old Alfie did know how to pick them,” I said, and stomped on the Duesy’s starter box.

  * * *

  I lurched into gear, rolled out of the cemetery, and took the coastal highway toward home. It was only a few miles from the cemetery, through lush woodland and waterlogged meadows, which now and then afforded glimpses of the misty gray sound. Along the way, we passed many grand gatehouses, stone walls, and ornate iron gates that marked entrances to the palatial estates along this, the sumptuous Gold Coast.

  My own house, which Alfie had named Folie Maison, snuggled back in the trees, only its four brick chimneys visible from the road.

  I braked at the wrought iron gates, and the gatekeeper scurried out of the little brick and half-timber lodge. He gave me a salute. “Mrs. Woodby,” he said. He jogged over to unlatch the gates. He wore a black armband. Very proper. He also wore a sickly little smile, and he kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Mr. Blunt seems … jumpy,” I said to Berta.

  “Perhaps because he consumes nothing but tinned kippers and chicory.”

  As we waited for Mr. Blunt to drag the gates open, my eyes strayed to the ivy-draped pillar upon which one gate was hinged. I blinked.

  “Amberley?” I said. “Amberley? Berta, what has happened to the sign?” I pointed. Where there had been a sign reading FOLIE MAISON in gilt, there was now a sign that read AMBERLEY in square black letters.

  Berta’s eyes widened. “Good gracious, I do not know, Mrs. Woodby. Someone has changed the sign. How very odd.”

  “It was changed today. This morning, while we were at the funeral. I would’ve noticed it, otherwise. I motored through the gates twice yesterday.”

  Berta met my eyes. We both knew who had changed the sign.

  I set my mouth and zipped the Duesy through the gates. My thoughts were twirling as I roared up the lane. Several other motorcars were parked in the circular driveway, and still more by the carriage house.

  I screeched to a stop.

  “Calm yourself, Mrs. Woodby,” Berta said.

  “Calm?” I shouted.

  Folie Maison was an enormous house—a mansion, really—built to look like a Tudor cottage: brick, with brown and white half-timbering on the top half, and loads of chimneys and mullioned windows and steeply gabled wings. Ivy crept up the foundation stones.

  I stormed up the wide front steps, Cedric pattering at my heels.

  Just as I reached for the iron handle, the huge front door swung inward.

  “Hibbers!” I said, tearing off my hat.

  “Madam.” Hibbers, my butler, was tall and distinguished, with not a wrinkle on his dark suit, nor a single hair out of place on his graying head. He really spruced up a doorway.

  “Who has changed the sign at the front gates?” I asked. “It was Chisholm, wasn’t it?—Mr. Woodby, I mean to say. Where is he?”

  I was about to toss my hat into Hibbers’s usually welcoming hands, when I noticed that he held his own hat in one hand. And a suitcase in the other.

  Uh-oh.

  “I regret to inform you, madam,” he said, “that I must give notice.” He placed his bowler hat on his head and slid around me.

  I followed him. “You’re quitting? But I’ve treated you so well! Now that Alfie’s gone, there won’t be such a mess to clean up. No more mad parties, I promise, and—”

  “That is precisely the trouble, madam.” Hibbers placed his suitcase on the rack of his black Chrysler, which was parked in the driveway.

  “What do you mean?”

  He buckled the luggage rack’s straps.

  “Do you want a raise?” I said. The thought of life without Hibbers and his little sandwiches, his angelically shaken cocktails, made my throat ache.

  Hibbers slid behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. “You do not fully comprehend, madam,” he said out the window. “I shan’t work for that insect.”

  “Insect?” I said. But I knew who he meant. “You don’t work for Chisholm. You work for me! And where are you going?”

  He started the engine. “Dune House.”

  “What?” Dune House was Horace and Olive Arbuckle’s estate, three miles down the road.

  “Mrs. Arbuckle has, many times in the past, extended me offers of employment. I have decided at last to accept, as their butler, Mr. Hisakawa, was quite abruptly dismissed recently. Good afternoon, madam.”

  He swung the Chrysler around the drive with a spurt of white gravel, and rumbled away down the tree-lined drive.

  I stared, dumbfounded, until the chrome bumper disappeared from view. Raindrops smacked my face. All my relief—and even, I confess, glee—over my newly minted widowhood was shriveling.

  The front door was open. Subdued voices and the scent of coffee drifted out. A cold luncheon had been planned for the funeral guests, and then Chisholm and I were to meet the lawyer in the library for the reading of Alfie’s last will and testament.

  But it was starting to look like Chisholm had already gotten a sneak peek at the will.

  How I pined for one of Hibbers’s highballs. And how I hankered to short-sheet Chisholm’s bed.

  I swooped Cedric into my arms. He nuzzled my cheek.

  “It’ll be all right, peanut,” I whispered to him. “I hope.”

  * * *

  The good news, it turned out, was that Alfie hadn’t actually written a will, so everything went to me. The bad news was, there wasn’t a nickel to inherit.

  I perched in a green leather chair in Folie Maison’s library, opposite the lawyer. He was a grayish little fellow with a nasal voice. The last of the funeral guests had trickled away after gorging themselves on smoked salmon sandwiches and Berta’s miniature napoleons.

  “Nothing,” I repeated to the lawyer. “How could I be flat broke when Alfie was so wealthy?”

  “Although your late husband was the elder of the two Woodby children,” the lawyer said, “your mother-in-law, Rose, controls most of the family fortune.”

  Rose was a tyrannical invalid who lived in secluded splendor in Palm Beach, Florida. She was far too delicate to have traveled up for Alfie’s funeral. Besides, she’d never cared much for Alfie. She doted on Chisholm—who at that moment lurked near the fireplace.

  “Father had the foresight to tie up Alfred’s inheritance in trust before he went to his reward fifteen years ago,” Chisholm said. “It was doled out to Alfred as a monthly allowance.”

  Like dog treats. It made perfect sense. Still, this was all news to me.

  “Your late husband was … indiscriminate in his spending habits,” the lawyer said. “Were you aware that he owned three yachts? Six racehorses?”

  Chisholm emitted a desiccated chuckle. “Alfred’s entire life was indiscriminate from start to finish, I’m afraid.”

  “Fine,” I said, “then I’ll sell the yachts and racehorses and everything else, and put the money in the bank. Duck soup.”

  The lawyer shook his head. “Selling off your late husband’s assets will not even cover the tip of the iceberg in terms of his debts. There is a veritable legion of creditors clamoring for settlements. Tailors, decorators, motorcar dealers, costly restaurants, auction houses, hotels—even the casino in Monte Carlo has sent a rather nasty letter. There are also several substantial loans against his trust fund, which he took on to free up more cash. He was spending hugely beyond his income.”

  “Like sand through an hourglass,” Chisholm said.

  “Pity you didn’t sign up to be a preacher,” I said to him. I was parched, so I crossed the library to the cabinet where Alfie had kept a stash of booze.

  “If only,” Chisholm went on, “dear Alfred had had a moral compass to guide him across this vast wasteland we call Life, with which to—”

  I opened the liquor cabinet. It was empty. I swung around. “You,” I said, pointing a finger at Chisholm. “Where did you put
the gin?”

  “Down the bathtub drain from whence it came.”

  Chisholm belonged to the Gentlemen’s Temperance Society, the Booze Is Bilge Club, and the Association of Medical Physicians Opposed to Tippling. Although he was the chief nerve specialist at Babbling Brook Hospital, I knew he had ambitions to enter politics. In short, his zeal for the Eighteenth Amendment was both sanctimonious and strategic.

  “I am afraid, dear Lola,” Chisholm said, “that I must ask you to vacate Amberley.”

  “Amberley?” I stomped my T-strap shoe on the carpet. “When did my house become Amberley? Sounds like one of your loony bins!”

  “And it certainly is beginning to seem like one, dearest Lola,” Chisholm said.

  “Your husband, Mrs. Woodby, never owned this house,” the lawyer said. “You merely occupied it. It has always belonged to Rose Woodby. And she has telephoned from Florida to say that, as you failed to produce an heir, she wishes for you to vacate the house and turn it over to Chisholm.”

  “What? Are we trapped inside a Jane Austen novel? This is America! Younger brothers can’t pull out the rug from under wives like that!”

  “They can, and do,” the lawyer said.

  “And about the heir,” I said, “if you need one, Alfie probably has dozens of little heirs crawling around backstage on Forty-second Street.”

  “Get a handle on yourself, Lola,” Chisholm said. “I would allow you to stay on, of course, but there is the problem of your immoral lifestyle. I have my reputation to think of, my career, and a single, indecent female under my roof—”

  “Indecent?” I balled my fists. “Immoral? Your brother was the indecent, immoral one, not I!”

  “I’ll be acquiring a wife soon, and she shall produce offspring in time. Now, I had considered allowing you to stay on here—”

  “What, as some kind of poor relation?”

  “—but your habits are reprehensible. In fact, some of them are illegal.”

  “Everyone we know drinks.”

  “Everyone you know, perhaps. Then there are the lurid dime novels. I’ve seen them scattered on every surface. The covers alone!” He made a mock shiver.

  “Some of that is real literature,” I said. “Sherlock Holmes. He’s British.”

  “So was Jack the Ripper. I am sorry, Lola, but I must ask you to pack your bags and leave. And don’t take my mother’s jewelry with you.”

  I faced the lawyer. “Could I stay at our Park Avenue place?”

  “I’m afraid that the apartment and its contents must be sold immediately to settle the bulk of the debts,” he said. “I understand repossession agents will enter the premises tomorrow.”

  “Your parents will be overjoyed to have you back home,” Chisholm said.

  I shot him a molten-lava glance.

  Then, my memory jiggled and spit something out, like a gumball machine.

  Of course. The key.

  I looked back to the lawyer. “Are there any … any other places I might live?”

  “You must know, Mrs. Woodby, that there are no other real estate holdings.”

  That’s what he thought.

  “Of course there aren’t,” I said.

  3

  I left Chisholm and the lawyer in the library and walked up Folie Maison’s—pardon me, Amberley’s—grand staircase. From down below came the sounds of the maids clearing away luncheon in the dining room. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, Cedric had appeared. Doubtless from either the kitchen or the dining room, since he was diligent about helping the maids clean morsels from floors.

  We walked through corridors lined with polished wainscoting, Persian runners, and British landscapes in gold-encrusted frames. All of it belonged to Chisholm now.

  “It’s enough to make you lose your luncheon,” I muttered to Cedric.

  We slipped through a door into Alfie’s bedroom.

  Alfie’s bedroom adjoined mine, but the door between our rooms had been shut—in every possible sense—for many years. The room had been tidied, but it still smelled of debauchery: spicy cologne, Turkish cigarettes, smuggled brandy, and the scent of other ladies’ foundation powder. And since there had been, since Cedric’s earliest puppyhood, bad blood between Alfie and Cedric, Alfie’s furniture exhibited tiny teeth marks, and tiny shreds in the satin upholstery. There was more than one suspicious stain on the carpet.

  I went to Alfie’s mahogany highboy. I knew he’d kept important odds and ends in the top drawer. For instance, it was there that I’d discovered the first chorus girl’s address, written in foolish, looped script on the back of Alfie’s own calling card. That had been three months after our honeymoon.

  Today, however, I was searching for something a tad more useful. I slid open the drawer, scanned the contents, and sighed in relief: there, amid cuff links, extra buttons, betting cards, and loose cigarettes, was a smallish brass door key.

  I snatched it and hurried through to my own bedroom.

  My bedroom was done up with yellow rose-blossom curtains, plush carpeting, and a matched set of English-style rosewood furniture. The latticed windows had a view of the sea, but my favorite spot was the sofa by the fireplace, where I had loved to read.

  I smeared hot, furious tears across my cheeks. I could rough it for a spell. I’d grown up in Scragg Springs, Indiana, by golly, and Father hadn’t always been rolling in greenbacks. Cedric, on the other hand, was used to the finer things in life. In fact, he insisted upon them.

  I had an all-too-lucid vision of Chisholm tightening my straitjacket as I tried to explain to him Cedric’s plight.

  I refurbished my tear-blotched makeup in my vanity mirror. Then I started packing.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, I was loaded down with two suitcases, three hatboxes, and a handbag. Cedric and I took the servants’ staircase; I had no intention of bidding a formal adieu to the Prig.

  I’d almost made it outside when Berta intercepted me.

  “Mrs. Woodby, there you are,” she said. “Might I have a word?” Her request was uttered in the most dignified old-world style, but she’d blocked my path to the door. She wore a floral shirtdress, but no apron.

  Alarm bells jangled in my head.

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry, Berta.” I set down the luggage. “I guess you haven’t heard. Chisholm is now the master of this household. I’ve been given the bum’s rush.”

  Berta sniffed. “I have been informed of the turn of events, yes, but I shall not work for him. He wishes only health bread to eat in the mornings. Health bread does not have any yeast in it.” She shook her head. “He wants no strudel, no biscuits, no pies. Nothing with butter or cream—”

  “I know, I know,” I said, wincing. Chisholm was not content to deprive himself in the beverage department; he adhered to abstemious eating habits, too.

  “I gave him my notice.”

  “Good thinking.” I started buttoning my coat. “You were always a wonderful cook, Berta.” Maybe a little too wonderful—my coat buttons were straining at their threads. “Thank you. If I can write a reference for you, please telephone my mother. She will hunt me down eventually, I’m sure.”

  “I shall continue to work for you.”

  “I wish you could, Berta, but the problem is, I’m on the nut.” I picked up my suitcases.

  “‘Nut,’ Mrs. Woodby?”

  “I’m broke.”

  “But surely you will not do for yourself. A lady of your position?” Berta clucked her tongue. “Do you even know how to boil an egg?”

  “I’m not sure what my position is anymore.” I really needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. That would lead to tears, and I couldn’t foot the mascara bills.

  “You will stay with your mother and father? Perhaps they need a new cook?”

  “Stay with my family?” That notion was more hellish than health bread. “No!”

  Berta seemed to loom over me, though she was over sixty years old and possessed the approximate dimensions of a garden
gnome. “You owe me three months’ pay. Mr. Woodby was not current with our salaries.”

  I gulped. “I didn’t know. I’ll do my best to—”

  “I shall not work for Chisholm Woodby. I shall go with you, wherever you are going, and you shall employ me.” Berta’s mild round face went stony. “Or else pay me now.”

  “Very well.” I sighed. “I’ll just wait in my motorcar while you pack your—”

  “No need.” Berta produced her dumpy Edwardian hat and squashed it atop her bun. She picked up a shabby little suitcase and her raincoat that I hadn’t noticed in the shadows of the hallway. “I already packed.”

  * * *

  It was still drizzling when we motored across the Williamsburg Bridge and into the shining-wet glitter of Manhattan. My spirits were dwindling, and I was developing a charley horse in my gas-pedal foot. Cedric was snoozing on top of Berta’s suitcase behind me. Berta had snored through the entire forty-mile trip, mouth wide, head thrown back.

  When a taxicab driver honked at me for cutting him off, Berta snorted abruptly awake. “Where are we going?” She glared out the window. “This is not near your parents’ apartment.”

  “We’re not going to my parents’ apartment—something I would’ve told you had you not fallen asleep in two seconds flat. We’re going to Alfie’s, um—” I licked my lips. “—love nest.”

  Berta fumbled for her locket.

  I maneuvered around a snail-slow Buick. “Surely you aren’t surprised. This is Alfie we’re speaking of.”

  “I chose to ignore Mr. Woodby’s shortcomings.”

  “So did I. But ignoring only works to a point.” Tears bubbled up in my eyes. Oh, rats. What had become of me? All those years, stacked up behind me. Miserable, wasted years. And now … now what?

  “Pardon me for asking, Mrs. Woodby, but … why did you stay?”

  I thumped my fist on the car horn. “Did you see that? That pill in the Buick almost dinged me!”

  “You knew Mr. Woodby had a love nest, for goodness’ sake.”

  I snuffled back my tears. “I found out the address three years ago, quite unexpectedly, when there was a mix-up with our Wright’s Department Store delivery. My standing order of jams and things had been replaced with a hamper full of chocolate caramels, beluga caviar, gumdrops, and Beech-Nut chewing gum. Chewing gum!”