She asked Qwilleran if he wanted to walk up the front stairs or go around to the elevator in the rear. The stairs were steep and narrow in the old style, and thick carpet made the shallow treads even shallower for a size-twelve shoe. The elevator, accessible from the parking lot in the rear, had been a recent innovation.
'I'm feeling reckless - I'll take the dangerous short cut,' he said.
The stairs were carpeted with red roses; the walls were deep red, hung with myriad framed engravings. The interior designer, Amanda Goodwinter, had explained to Qwilleran, 'I give the customers what they want! It's their money, and they have to live with it.'
Upstairs there were more red roses wall to wall and more red walls hung with large oil paintings in gilt frames.
The discussion took place at a richly carved marble-top table around which were velvet-tufted chairs.
'Sure you don't want a cup of tea?' Maggie asked.
Qwilleran declined again and began: 'I'm writing a book on the Hibbard House, to be published by the K Fund—'
'I know! Violet told me! I'm delighted! Is there any way I can help? I'm older than she is, but we grew up together.'
'A perfect setup, Maggie! I'm collecting memories of Hibbard House from longtime residents of the community.' He placed a pocket-size tape recorder on the marble table.
'Oh, I remember going up in the tower to see the lake ten miles away . . . and tobogganing down the Hibbard hill in winter . . . camping out in sleeping bags on an upstairs veranda in summertime . . . sitting around the fire in the library while Violet's father read to us.
`She went away to college and then to Italy, but I married my Jeremy and was deliriously happy. He loved growing roses, and every day he would bring me one perfect floribunda from the garden and sing "Only a Rose" from the Rudolf Friml operetta! He had a beautiful baritone voice! . . . Violet and I corresponded while she was in Italy, and I was thrilled to hear she was marrying an artist over there. But when her parents found out that he wasn't only an artist but a foreigner . . . they had fits! Violet was told it would kill her mother! She came home.'
`And never married?' Qwilleran asked.
Maggie nodded soberly. 'Out of spite, I think. She was an only child, and it meant the end of the direct Hibbard bloodline ... But I'll never forget how she cried, day after day, when she first came home from Italy. I cried with her!'
Tears welled in Maggie's eyes, and Qwilleran said, 'I believe I would like a cup of tea.'
When Maggie returned with the tea tray, her face was composed.
'I felt doubly sorry for Violet because Jeremy and I were blissfully married and he was raising roses with a passion. Then one day he sent her a single long-stemmed rose with the famous Hafez of Shiraz poem that you probably know.' She recited the lines from the thirteenth-century poem:
Give never the wine bowl from thy hand
Nor loose thy grasp on the rose's stem
'Tis a mad bad world that the fates have planned.
Match wits with their every stratagem!
`Mmm,' Qwilleran murmured. 'An inspired gesture!'
'It was just what she needed, Qwill. I don't know whether it was the poem or the rose. Jeremy started rose-watching twenty years before it became fashionable in Lockmaster. He raised long-stemmed roses for the purpose, in a hothouse. They're a special hybrid, you know, planted close together so they grow tall. I wish you and Jeremy could have known each other.
'Do you know about Violet's health problem, Qwill?'
'I know she went to Lockmaster for a checkup today.'
`She's known for several years that she has an aneurysm. It could strike her down without warning.'
For a moment Qwilleran could only stare. 'I'm shocked! And greatly saddened! And amazed that she faces the world with such poise and enthusiasm.'
'She's learned to make the most of every day,' Maggie said. `And so you know why I'm glad that you're working on a Hibbard House book. On the other hand, she could live to be a hundred. I'll think of some more early memories.'
`Keep adding them to the tape, Maggie, and I'll check back with you in a week.'
When Alden, in the official Hibbard House van, pulled into the barnyard, Qwilleran went out to suggest backing up to the kitchen door for efficient unloading. Koko and Yum Yum were watching in the kitchen window but scattered. Qwilleran liked to say that only two Siamese know how to scatter in three directions at once.
The men carried the boxes to one side of the fireplace cube, where Alden offered to help shelve the books.
Qwilleran said, 'Since they're going to be catalogued first, I'll unpack, and you go up the ramp to check out the acoustics of this dump. Recite some Shakespeare.'
'Chance of a lifetime!' his guest declared as he faced a complete set of Shakespeare plays in individual volumes. 'I see you have the Arden collection, you lucky dog!'
'Take Henry the Fifth and read the prologue,' Qwilleran suggested. Then he listened with genuine fascination as thirty-four lines resounded from the roof of the barn, starting with 'O! for a Muse of fire . . .’
The barn had never sounded so good! Perhaps the actor had never sounded so good!
'Sing something, Alden!' he shouted from the ground floor. Alden sang, 'Give me some men who are stout-hearted men . . . Qwilleran applauded, and with exultation Alden started back down the ramp. Within seconds his feet shot up, and he landed with an ominous thump.
Shouting, Qwilleran raced up the slope, seeing a blur of fur disappear as he did so. 'Alden! Are you hurt? What happened?'
'I don't know, but I'm all right. In theatre studies we teach how lo fall onstage.'
'How about a little drink for your nerves?'
'My nerves are okay. Thanks, but I have to get home to uncork the wine.'
'Tell Violet I'm writing a profuse thank-you note!'
Qwilleran was glad the drink had been declined; he wanted to start organizing his bonanza of journalists, bridging the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were names like Mencken, Hearst, Patterson, and Luce . . . women like Nellie Bly and Ida Tarbell . . . Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, Irvin S. Cobb, Will Rogers, George Ade, Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, and more.
The Siamese were encroaching on the scene, sniffing inquisitively. But Koko walked with that peculiar stiff-legged gait denoting guilt, leading Qwilleran up the ramp to the scene of the crash, and there - as he might have suspected - was a narrow strip of banana peel.
Thinking about it later, over a cup of coffee, Qwilleran had to chuckle when he thought of Alden's nasty spill. Since the beginning of burlesque there had been humour in slipping on a banana peel. Putting two and two together, he had to conclude that Koko simply did not like Alden Wade, despite his fine speaking voice and polished manners. In fact, Qwilleran was inspired to compose a parody of the well-known Samuel Johnson verse:
He does not like thee, Mr Wade,
No explanation has been mode.
I only know
The status quo.
He does not like thee, Mr Wade.
Chapter 14
Before Qwilleran could automate the coffeemaker on Tuesday morning, Bushy phoned. 'Hey, Qwill! Just wanted you to know I spent the day shooting Hibbard exteriors yesterday. It was a good day for exteriors. Miss Hibbard wasn't around, but I didn't need her. Today I'm taking Janice, and we're doing interiors.'
Qwilleran said, 'You mean, you don't want me for a flunky this time? I'm fired?'
`You're fired! I'll have the services of a housekeeper and houseboy all day. But I'm taking Janice along as official note taker because she's dying to see the place.