The Body in the Gazebo (15 page)

The room was filling up and it was warm enough for some of the guests to sit out on the porch that stretched across the back of the club, facing the water. Each Tillie was allowed to bring one guest, and from the increasing volume of conversation, it appeared tonight was full muster—another happy Tillie dinner. As she crossed the large living room, Faith realized that the “cottage” on Martha’s Vineyard that Ursula had been describing must have resembled the club, a late-Victorian wood-shingled structure with a decorous amount of trim. The floors were covered by good, and appropriately worn, Orientals. The fireplace that dominated one end of the room was massive. Genre seascapes in dire need of cleaning and photos of notable yachts and crews hung in between the trophy cases that lined the walls. The furniture tended toward comfortable leather sofas and oversized wing chairs.

The next two hours passed quickly as Faith and Niki hustled to get the food out. As Tricia and the waitstaff from the club served the traditional chocolate cake and coffee, Scott helped pack up the food and used dinnerware. He and Tricia were having babysitter problems and had to be home sooner than usual. They’d take the van. Faith and Niki could manage the rest, loading Faith’s car.

“Sit down,” Faith told Niki. “They’re going to move on to their cigars and brandy. Things are starting to wind down, but they haven’t inducted this year’s member, which always takes a while.”

Tillie events were rigorously choreographed. At the height of the evening, ribald toasts were made and they threw their napkins, tied into knots, at one another, dislodging their wives’ headbands and causing their bow ties to run downhill. By the end of the evening they’d calmed down and took the swearing in of the newest Tillie seriously.

“I’m not tired,” Niki said. “And you’re the last person I expected to treat me as if I were made of glass. Another reason not to tell Mom—or Phil.”

“You’ve been on your feet all night, missy. And I believe I have, in the past when you were not enceinte, told you to sit down when I thought you were tired.”

“Okay, okay, maybe I’m a little sensitive.”

Faith started to tell her it was hormones and then thought better of it. She also decided not to bring up the conversation they’d had in this very kitchen several years ago about communicating with one’s spouse. Faith had hit a rocky patch in her marriage where she and Tom, especially Tom, were deliberately passing like ships in the night—the image appropriate to tonight’s venue jumped back into her head. Each tentative start to discussing their problems that Faith placed in Tom’s path had been ignored. It was Niki who’d set her straight, saying in essence that if Faith had wanted meaningful communication she was looking to the wrong gender. The phrase “we need to talk” was viewed completely differently by men and women, sending each in a diametrically opposed direction. Women to a side-by-side conversational exchange; men out the door for parts unknown.

It had been a big help, that talk. Niki and she had laughed—and cried a bit. Not long after, Faith and Tom weathered the storm. Tonight Faith wished she could remind Niki about the way Faith’s taking the initiative, albeit obliquely, had solved the Fairchilds’ problems.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Niki said.

“No you don’t.”

“Oh yes I do. This kitchen always brings it back and don’t you dare throw my words in my face.”

“I think you’re doing it for me,” Faith said.

For a moment she thought Niki was going to explode—she had inherited her mother’s famous temper—and then she started laughing.

“I guess I am, but Faith, I’m not telling him. Not yet.”

The sound of a utensil on a glass calling for quiet came from the next room.

“Come on, let’s peek,” Niki said, going to the door.

There was no need. The chairman was coming through it.

“Please join us as we wrap up the evening. As usual you’ve given us a splendid time and we all want to thank you before it ends.”

Faith took off her apron, Niki followed suit, and they went into the dining room. The lights had been turned up.

“The membership committee head is going to introduce our new member and then I’d like to publicly thank you,” the chairman whispered.

Faith smiled back at him, as she did at whoever was chairman each time the thank-you was proposed. If the script ever changed, she’d know that hell had frozen over.

“No surprises,” Niki said softly into Faith’s other ear as the newest Tillie stood up. “This isn’t going to be the year they induct an African American, Jewish, Native American woman apparently.”

But it
was
a surprise. When the newest Tillie stood up, Faith knew the name before it was announced.

The Reverend James Holden, First Parish’s associate minister.

“I know James,” she said to the chairman, so startled that she forgot to lower her voice.

“Good man, Holden. Great sailor. And damn lucky. Just bought the prettiest little Bristol thirty-three I’ve seen in a dog’s age. Stole it from some poor guy declaring bankruptcy for only ten thou.”

Ten thou, Faith thought. Ten thousand dollars.

James Holden was making a pretty little acceptance speech—and Faith could hardly wait to ask him where he’d come across all the pretty little pennies he’d used to buy the pretty little boat.

She wished she could jump up and corner him right now. After all, “Time and tide wait for no man”—or woman.

Chapter 7

“A
fterward I was very ill for a long time,” Ursula said, her words in concert with the steady downpour outside the window. The rain had started as Faith drove home from Marblehead the night before, building to a window-rattling thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning. Soccer practice had been canceled and both kids had quickly filled the unexpectedly free day with various activities with friends. Tom was rewriting his sermon yet again, and after checking with Dora, Faith had come to see Ursula, who was sitting up, looked well, and picked up the threads of her tale almost as soon as Faith entered the room.

“Scientists say you can’t contract illnesses from shock, although a shock can make you feel ill, but I developed a serious case of scarlet fever. I had, most probably, contracted it days earlier on the Vineyard, but the symptoms were overlooked. I freckled in the sun and my high color had also been ascribed to too much exposure—and excitement. Before she left for Boston, Mother cautioned me to wear my broad-brimmed straw hat and stay in the cool shade.

“I don’t remember leaving the island or even what happened immediately after I found Theo in the gazebo. Mother had a school friend who’d married an Englishman and was living in Bermuda, where he had been posted as an adjunct of some sort to the governor. After I was out of danger, she and I went to stay with them in Hamilton for the rest of the fall and on into the winter.

“When I returned, my entire world had changed.”

Faith was very close to her sister, Hope, one year younger. The thought of losing her was unbearable. Theo had been older, but the siblings appeared to have had a similar bond, especially on Ursula’s part.

“It must have been terrible to return to the house, knowing he was gone from it forever,” Faith said.

“The thing was that it wasn’t my house.”

Faith nodded. “It must have seemed like a totally different place without him.”

“No, it really wasn’t my house. While we were gone, Father sold the Beacon Hill house and moved us to Aleford.”

Seeing Faith’s astonishment, she added hastily, “Mother knew all about it, and on the steamship back, she told me we’d moved, but I hadn’t fully taken it in until Father picked us up at the pier and we drove past the Boston Common without slowing down.

“He’d managed to hold on to the firm without declaring bankruptcy on Black Tuesday, but barely. Uncharacteristically he’d been investing heavily in the market and lost everything. And then there were Theo’s debts. I learned all this later. At the time, I was protected as much as possible from the grim financial reality my parents were facing in the midst of their intense grief. And guilt. Mother blamed herself for leaving, although I don’t see how she could not have gone. How could she have known? And her sister did have a close call. I believe, though, that to the end of her life, she wished she had insisted that the guests leave. Mother thought Mrs. Miles, the housekeeper they’d hired for the summer, would watch over things—she was quite a martinet—but she’d slipped out. Probably to meet someone to go to Illumination Night. Mother rued hiring her. And Father blamed himself for just about everything from renting the Vineyard house to not being strict enough with his son, although he may also have privately reproached himself for being too strict.

“During those times creditors did not expect to be paid—no one had money—but Father felt honor bound to settle Theo’s accounts and his own even if it meant selling everything. The building with his offices and the house both went. The Pines in Sanpere didn’t, but that was just because no one wanted to buy a big place like that on an unfashionable island. I believe for a while he thought that Mother and I might live there and he’d rent a room near where he’d rented office space. He let the servants go. When I think back, it must have been a terrifying time for him. Many of his wealthy friends were weathering the crisis, but an equal number were going under.”

Then as now, Faith almost blurted out.

“He was too proud to ask anyone for a loan. Fortunately he had many loyal clients who stuck with him, although their reduced incomes meant a reduced income for him. Years later, after his death, Mother told me that he had worried all that summer about a fiscal crisis, but he was in the market too deep to pull out. He thought he’d suffer losses, and then he lost it all.

“Mother had inherited a house in Aleford from a maiden aunt and it had always been rented. Now it was to be our new home. I’ll never forget arriving from Bermuda in the late afternoon—it was quite dark—driving down Main Street, which looked very pokey to me after Commonwealth Avenue. The house was on Adams Street, up the hill from the green. It’s changed hands many times since we lived there and I barely recognize it. The current owners gutted it and added another story and all sorts of enormous windows.”

And, Faith thought, probably a home gym, media room, spa, great room, and heaven knows what else—retromedieval banquet hall?

“It was a fair-sized early-nineteenth-century Colonial, but the ceilings were low and Father looked even taller coming through the doorways, which the top of his head just grazed. A local woman, Mrs. Hansen, helped Mother with the housework and the cooking—you’ve heard me talk about my Norwegian friend, Marit. That’s how we met. Mrs. Hansen was her mother and Marit was my age. Mr. Hansen was a builder, and there was no work during the Depression, so they went back to Norway a few years after we moved to Aleford.”

“I thought you’d been born here and grew up in this house,” Faith said.

“After so much time, it seems like it, but my parents were both still alive and living in the Adams Street house when I got married and moved into this one . . .” Ursula paused. “You must be wondering about that.”

“Arnold Rowe, the tutor. Your husband? Yes?”

Faith had hoped that Ursula would start with an explanation after her dramatic revelation the previous time, and it had been all she could do to keep from asking her about the Professor. Ursula, however, was telling her tale in her own way.

“It’s the rest of the story and it’s quite complicated,” Ursula said.

“That’s all right. Complicated is fine. The kids are with friends; Tom is with . . . well, himself and his maker, and I have as much time as you want.”

“Good—but Dora will be cross if I don’t eat. I’ve started going down to the kitchen for some meals. She left something in the fridge. If you’ll take my arm, we can go see.”

Dora had left what amounted to a ploughwoman’s lunch—a more delicate version of the ploughman’s wedges of cheddar cheese, relish, butter, and crusty bread. There was cheese, but thinly sliced, some chutney, the bread and butter plus salad, and with a nod to the Hanoverians, a modicum of Ursula’s favorite—liverwurst.

After settling Ursula with a full plate and putting the kettle on for tea, Faith excused herself to make several phone calls with her cell.

“It’s terribly rude, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to reach two of the people I’m hoping can come for Sunday dinner after the service tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly. I just may make Samantha happy and get one of those things myself. They’re awfully convenient,” Ursula said.

Seeing James Holden, the newest Tillie, had caused Faith a restless night until suddenly in the wee hours of the morning she’d had an idea, a plan to “catch the conscience of a king.” She wasn’t going to stage a play, but she was going to set a trap, and if it did not snare a mouse, it would at least have been baited.

She was going to give a dinner party, or rather a Sunday dinner party. She often invited people for postchurch luncheon, so it would not seem out of the ordinary, and she was going to seed the guest list with her friends the Averys. Will and Patsy Avery were not members of First Parish, so had no idea of the current situation—otherwise Patsy would have been on the phone to Faith immediately. They had adopted siblings Kianna, age five, and her brother, Devon, age three, last fall after a prescient doctor asked them whether they wanted to reproduce themselves or raise a family together. For Patsy and Will, the answer was family, and they had found one in these harder-to-place older children, who were now also an extension of the Fairchild family. Ben didn’t mind it one bit that Devon worshiped him—and Faith suspected he liked the opportunity to play with LEGOs again. Amy and Kianna were equally inseparable and the four children would consider it a treat to have their lunch in the kitchen, away from the grown-ups, before going out to play on the swing set. Tom and his brothers had constructed it shortly after Ben was born, much to Faith’s amusement. It would be some years before the infant could climb the tower or go down the slide, but the Fairchild boys had worked in a frenzy to get it ready—and it did seem in retrospect that Ben was on it in a very short time.

The other grown-ups she was inviting were the Reverend James Holden—Faith intended to steer the conversation to boat purchases—and Eloise Gardner, the education director, who was also on the list Tom and Faith had drawn up. Eloise was a clotheshorse. A few pairs of Manolos, a Prada bag, plus trips to Sonia Rykiel, Ralph Lauren, and Burberry would eat up the missing money in a flash.

She hadn’t left messages on their machines when she’d called earlier, wanting a definite reply, and she was in luck. She reached them both and they would be happy to come. James had been previously, but Eloise hadn’t and expressed particular delight at the opportunity to sample some “real food,” confessing that her own “cuisine” was limited to the boxes in the freezer with “Lean” in front of the word. If Eloise turned out not to be the guilty party, Faith resolved to invite her for meals often. No one should be subjected to that kind of life.

Albert Trumbull, the parish administrative assistant, and Lily Sinclair, the former divinity school intern, as well as the vestry members on the list, would have to wait their turns for scrutiny.

She noticed she had a text and, after opening it, was pleased to find a response to the e-mail she’d sent to Zach Cummings Wednesday night. He apologized for not getting back to her sooner—and told her to call. He’d be around all weekend. He’d written, “Another mystery?” and added a winking smiley emoticon.

Things were looking up.

“Pour the tea and let’s sit here awhile. I love to look at the river, no matter what the weather,” Ursula said.

It was still pouring steadily and a pool had appeared at the bottom of Ursula’s yard that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. Faith hoped Tom had remembered to turn on the sump pump, so the parsonage basement wouldn’t flood. For a brief moment she thought longingly to the time in her life when she’d had no idea what a “sump pump” was.

“Here’s where I say, ‘Reader, I married him,’ although not for many years. It was, in fact, quite a while before I thought of Arnold Rowe at all. It never occurred to me that he hadn’t gone on to law school, completed his studies, and joined the ranks of desperate job seekers. I didn’t know about the trial and had blocked the image of him in the gazebo from my conscious mind. My unconscious was not so cooperative. That first year I was plagued by nightmares, waking with feelings of terror; but not wanting to disturb my parents, I would turn on the light and read until sleep, uninterrupted, returned.

“The same aunt who’d owned our house was an alumna of the Cabot School here in town and had left a substantial endowment for scholarships. Mother approached the headmistress, and upon returning from Bermuda, I was enrolled there as a day student. Life took on a semblance of normalcy with new routines. Father took the train into town; I walked to school; and Mother managed the house, although her heart was in the garden. In the spring, that’s where I’d find her, sometimes with tears in her eyes and I knew she’d been thinking of Theo. I missed him dreadfully and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about him. Mother and Father never mentioned him, or what had happened. There were no visible pictures of him in the house, nothing to indicate he had ever existed.”

“Why do you think this was?” Faith asked. It seemed so extreme. Theo hadn’t committed a crime. He was the victim of one.

“Mostly because it was too painful—and people didn’t ‘let it all hang out’ in those days, remember—but also because Aleford represented a new beginning for the family. The trial started in late October. Any reports would have been eclipsed by the day’s more dramatic accounts of bank and business failures. In addition, although Aleford was the same number of miles from town then as it is now, much more distance separated the two when it came to communication at that time. It was truly a backwater.

“Earlier, in August, there had been a quiet funeral at King’s Chapel and afterward he was buried in the Lyman family plot at Mount Auburn cemetery. I was too ill to be present.”

Ursula sounded as bereft now as she was then. Faith’s heart ached for her. Barely out of childhood, she had had the initial loss repeated over and over again with no one to talk to about her brother, no one with whom she could remember the happy days, years that had preceded his untimely death.

“He always kept Butterfinger candy bars in his pocket for me. They were my favorite. I haven’t been able to eat one since . . .”

Ursula hated Aleford. She kicked a stone on the sidewalk. It felt so good, she kicked another. Cabot wasn’t anything like Winsor, her old school. The day students, especially the ones on scholarships, were second-class citizens so far as the boarders were concerned. And how did they know—these girls who brought their own horses and talked of summers in the Adirondacks? Horses. Cabot was a very horsey school. Ursula had never ridden. The only horses she ever saw had been the ones the mounted police rode on the Boston Common.

She missed her friends. In the first months after the move, her mother had said not to worry, that they’d keep in touch and that Ursula could visit them often. And there had been a few letters back and forth, no one saying what they must all have been thinking, but these had petered out. The visits never materialized, and the only time she went to town was to go to church and see her cousins afterward. Even that wasn’t every Sunday. Her parents had started attending First Parish out here. It was nothing like King’s Chapel. A boring white church with a steeple just like every other one you saw on the greens of New England. King’s Chapel was made of stone, soaring pillars in front and inside vaulting that took your eye to the beautiful sky-blue ceiling above. It was the oldest church in Boston and didn’t have a steeple. So there. She kicked another stone.