“Judges and juries decide things like that, lawyers don’t.”
“If there’s any chance he’ll be punished, I’ve got to warn him to stay away.”
“Why?”
“You read the letter,” she said with a wry little smile. “He’s an old friend and I’m a real peach. Aren’t us real peaches expected to do things like that?”
“I guess you are.”
“Well?”
“Check with Miranda. She might not want him punished any more than you do. Ask her.”
“I can’t ask her without letting on that I’ve heard from him and know where he is.”
“Make it a hypothetical question.”
“I don’t believe I could fool her. We’ve become pretty well acquainted during the past six months.”
“How?”
“Seeing each other here at the club. She isn’t a member anymore, she can’t afford the dues, but she comes in with Admiral Young’s daughters. While they swim and have lunch she talks to me in the office. She could swim and have lunch if she wanted to — Mr. Henderson would be glad to bend the rule about employees of members not being allowed the privileges of members. She won’t accept any favors, though. Or maybe she just likes to get away from the girls whenever she can... Did you know she was working?”
“I met her on the street a couple of weeks ago. She told me you’d gotten her a job.”
“Not really. It was my suggestion, that’s all. She wasn’t trained for anything except being a lady, and there’s not much demand for teaching ladyness or ladyship or whatever. Then I thought of Admiral Young’s daughters and I suggested to him one day that perhaps Miranda Shaw could teach the girls some of the social graces they lacked. He approved of the idea.”
“The girls were with Miranda when I saw her,” Aragon said. “I didn’t notice much improvement in their ladyshipness.”
“No results were guaranteed. I doubt that the Admiral expected any. He’s a wise man, he was probably only trying to help Miranda.”
“And you?”
“What do you mean and me?”
“What was your motive?”
“I’m a nice girl,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“Yes. I also noticed you’d been crying. Why?”
“I went to a sad movie. Or I saw a little dog that looked like one I had when I was a kid. Or I remembered my favorite aunt who died last year. Check one of the above.”
“Check none of the above. And you mustn’t add your tears to ‘all that water under the bridge’ Grady mentioned.”
“How can I avoid it?”
“Don’t answer his letter. Don’t tell him to come, don’t warn him to stay away. Just stay out of it.”
“That’s a lot of advice in return for a stale cup of coffee.”
“I drank the coffee. Are you going to take the advice?”
“Sorry, it’s too late,” she said. “I sent him the application form yesterday afternoon.”
The girls liked to put on their pajamas and eat dinner in the upstairs sitting room with their cat, Snowball, while watching television. Miranda’s arrival had changed all that. She insisted they appear at the table properly dressed, on their best behavior and without the cat. This rule applied especially when guests were expected.
Retired military friends of the Admiral stopped on their way through town now and then, and once a month Charles Van Eyck came to see his sister, Iris, motivated not so much by duty as by expedience. Iris possessed a great deal of money which she would one day have to abandon for more spiritual satisfactions. Though considerably younger than he, she was unwell and unhappy and the combination gave him hopes of outliving her. These hopes changed daily like the stock market, gaining a few points here, losing a few there. As an investment the monthly dinner was becoming more and more speculative. Iris seemed to thrive on adversity. Arthritis and a recent heart attack gave her an excuse to do only what she wanted to do, and unhappiness made her oblivious to the needs and desires of other people and the fact that blood was thicker than water.
By his own standards Van Eyck was not greedy but he liked to think about money and he enjoyed its company. He studied his savings-account books and various senior citizens’ publications. He visited his safety-deposit boxes and later he would sit in the lobby eating the free cookies and drinking the free coffee. He knew that the cookies and coffee were not actually free, that he was paying for them one way or another, so he ate and drank as much as he could before bank employees started giving him dirty looks. The dirty looks were free.
Lately Van Eyck had another reason for his regular visits to his sister. He distrusted all women, especially the pretty ones like Miranda Shaw. When she was first hired he wrote an anonymous letter to his sister which began You have taken a Jezzebel into your home... For several days he carried the letter around in his pocket in a sealed stamped correctly addressed envelope, afraid to post it. Iris with her sharp mind and suspicious nature might trace it back to him, and besides, he had a nagging doubt about the spelling of Jezebel. Jezebelle was more literal, Jezebell had a ring to it, Jezebel looked somehow unfinished. He thought of burning the letter but he hated to waste the stamp and some of the clever descriptive material about Miranda Shaw, so he sent it anyway.
To Miranda herself, who opened the door for him, he was polite, even gallant.
“Ah, my dear, how elegant you look this evening.”
“Thank you, Mr. Van Eyck. Mrs. Young and the Admiral will be down shortly. May I pour you a drink?”
“Pour ahead.”
“Your usual Scotch on the rocks?”
“One rock. I’m very Scotch.”
It was his favorite joke and entirely original, but all Miranda did was smile with one side of her mouth as if she were saving the other side for a later and a better joke. He changed the subject abruptly. There was no use aiming his best shots into a wilderness.
“What are we having for dinner?”
“Beef Wellington.”
“Why can’t we ever have something tasty like pot roast or chicken stew with dumplings?”
“The housekeeper received a French cookbook for Christmas.”
“Wellington was an English duke. Very cheeky of them to name a French dish after him. I intend to pour ketchup all over it.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t, Mr. Van Eyck. The housekeeper was very perturbed last time.”
“I’ll go out to the kitchen, find the ketchup wherever she’s hidden it and bring it right to the table. Beef Wellington indeed. The poor man is probably turning over in his grave smothered in all that greasy foreign pastry.”
“Please reconsider about the ketchup,” Miranda said. “It will set a bad example for the girls.”
The girls were all ready for a bad example. Inside the confines of their best dresses they squirmed and sighed and made faces. Cordelia’s lime-green silk had a sash so tight it divided her in two like an egg-timer, and Juliet wore her tattletale dress, a bouffant taffeta that responded noisily to the most discreet movement, crackling, rustling, complaining, almost as though it had a life of its own.
The girls sat side by side at the mahogany table across from Van Eyck and Miranda, who had done the setting herself — silver bowls floating camellias and miniature candles, and crystal bird vases with sprigs of daphne that scented the whole room. The Admiral at the head of the table complimented Miranda on the decorations, but Iris, opposite him, said she hated candles, flickering lights always gave her a migraine. She asked Cordelia to blow out the candles.
“I can’t,” Cordelia said.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t enough breath. My dress is too tight. I think I’m going to faint.”
“So am I,” Juliet said loyally.