The Body in the Kelp (23 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

BOOK: The Body in the Kelp
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There was no sound, except the sounds of the sea and forest. Nothing to threaten her, but nothing to save her either. Pix must have assumed Faith had gotten a phone call or held up some other way. But by now surely even unsuspicious Pix would have begun to wonder and come after her.
Faith leaned her uninjured cheek against the trunk of the tree, gave her arms a good rub, and settled down to wait.
But it wasn't Pix who rescued her.
“Mrs. Fairchild? Mrs. Fairchild? Are you all right? Faith? Where are you?” It was Nan Hamilton, and never had a voice sounded so welcome.
“I'm up here—in a tree.”
If Nan thought that was odd, her voice did not betray it. “Well, deah, just keep talkin', and I'll follow your voice. We were afraid you were hurt in the fog.”
Faith shuddered as she started to climb down, thinking of what Nan might have stumbled across if it hadn't been for the pine.
“Can you tell where I am?” she said loudly, and kept talking. “Someone was following me and wouldn't answer when I called out, so I climbed a tree until they went away.”
Nan was close enough for Faith to see her now.
“Now I call that real smart,” she said, and much to Faith's surprise folded her in an ample hug. “We'd better keep going to your house and call Pix. She was in quite a dither. Why, you're about frozen! Put this on and let's get you home.” Nan wrapped Faith in a huge sweater that smelled pleasantly of pancakes, wood smoke, and balsam. She hadn't forgotten to retrieve her
own sweater in her climb down, and she flung that on too. She was still cold.
Faith felt so relieved to be both alive and out of the tree that it didn't occur to her to ask what Nan was doing at the Millers' until they got to porch. The door was shut, and if someone was waiting for them inside, he'd have to deal with both of them. It was a reassuring idea.
Nan spoke before Faith could ask.
“I came over here to give you some mushrooms I'd dried. Thought you might be a little restless with all the fog. I saw the car and knew you couldn't be far away, so I went over to Pix's. She was just starting to get nervous and about to call Earl, but I said I'd take a look.”
“I hope you don't think I've imagined the whole thing,” Faith told her, beginning to feel as if she might have.
“No, deah, I don't think you've dreamed it all up. Wish you had.” She looked solemn. “I can't remember a time when the island has been like this. Everybody looking at everybody else like they don't know who they are. And you've got a nasty cut we'd better wash.” Faith stood still while Nan gently bathed her cut. She was feeling like a five-year-old about to get a cookie after skinning a knee. It was a lovely feeling.
She went into the kitchen and picked up the offending loaves lying all ready on the counter.
“Why don't you come back to Pix's and have a late lunch with us?” Faith didn't want Nan to leave yet.
“I think I will, thank you. Nothing but Freeman at home, and all he wants to do in weather like this is mend his traps and sleep. Not terrible interestin' for me.”
They took the car. There was no way Faith was going back into the woods except in the clear light of day, and maybe not even then.
Pix rushed out of the house. “Oh, Faith, thank God you're all right! You can't imagine what was going through my mind!”
Faith could and had.
Over lunch the three women speculated on who could possibly
have been following Faith and why. After a quick exchange of glances and a slight nod toward the quilting books, they told Nan about Matilda's quilt and the map.
“It sounds like her. Mind you, she was a friend. Maybe because we weren't related and she couldn't boss me around. But she had a peculiar streak in her. Like leaving the house to those two boys. That was just orneriness. Same thing with the gold. If she had it, she should have given it to her nieces and nephews. Fine people, most of them, and they work hard for a living, every day. Would have been pretty glad of some extra money.”
Faith tried not to picture the gold this way—a Prescott legacy. She pushed the image back toward her id and away from her usually high-minded super-ego.
Nan had stopped talking and appeared to be lost in thought. “I don't know who was following you, Faith, but I have a hunch if you find the gold or whatever it is Matilda hid, you'll be a lot safer.”
“My sentiments exactly,” agreed Pix. “You know the island so well, Nan. Why don't you have a look at the squares and see what you make of them?” She went to the closet and took down the bread crumbs. Fortunately she had taken the precaution of wrapping the photos in a Baggie, so Faith did not have to touch the crumbs. They spread them out on the table. Pix had labeled each one, and they told Nan how they had followed the map as indicated by the squares.
“She was a very smart woman,” Nan commented admiringly. “But I didn't know she was this smart. She was spry until a few years ago, so she must have had a lot of fun running around the island and figuring out her clues.”
She paused at number seventeen. “Why doesn't Rail Fence have a name to it?”
“Oh! You're wonderful! We couldn't find it,” Pix exclaimed.
Nan pointed a finger at number fourteen. “I've never seen a Jacob's Ladder like this one, but they are different in other parts of the country.”
“But Matilda would have used one she was familiar with. Oh, Pix, you don't think we've been wrong about these!” Faith
turned a stricken face toward her friend. She had felt they were virtually at the end of their quest.
“Maybe Jacob's Ladder, but not the others. The names have fit the clues. And anyway, we know White House Steps. That's the most important part, and I'm sure about it. Nan, can you think of a white house on that part of Prescott Point?”
“I know the very house she's thinking of. Only it's not there anymore.”
Pix and Faith looked at each other, crestfallen.
“Which house was it? Did it burn or was it moved?” Pix asked. Houses were moved routinely on the island as fortunes rose and fell.
“Neither. It just fell down and most of the lumber got hauled away. Belonged to Clifford Prescott. It wasn't even a white house. It was gray, but it got that nickname in the forties. FDR was yachtin' up here and they hailed Clifford when he was out lobsterin'. Wanted to buy eighty pounds of lobster. Clifford was a friendly sort, and he got to chatting with them and gave the President some special lobsters as a gift and got a thank-you note from The White House. He was right proud of that letter. Had it framed on the wall. That was when people started calling Clifford's house the Prescott White House. He loved the joke, and Matilda must have too.”
“That's a great story,” Faith said. She was in the mood for a cheerful story or two.
“If the house caved in, it's possible that the steps are still there.” Pix was thinking out loud.
“Of course,” Faith agreed eagerly. Nan looked a bit wary.
“Just be careful,” she said. “Now I'd better get home or Freeman will try to make his own supper, and there's no tellin' what the mess will be like.” She looked at Faith. “I hear you don't think much of island cookin'. You have to come over and have a meal with us sometime. I'm not a bad cook, if I do say so. The two best cooks on the island are two sisters. Had a restaurant in their old farmhouse. You may remember it, Pix, South
Beach Farm ? It was too popular and they got worn out, had to close. But that was some good.”
Faith blushed. Had her distaste at the casserole supper been so obvious? She remembered all the good smells in Nan's kitchen and didn't doubt her expertise.
“A lot of the food at the supper we went to was delicious—the baked beans, the biscuits, and the desserts. I don't care much for casseroles,” Faith said apologetically. “I hope you don't think I don't appreciate the island.”
“Well,” Nan admitted, “some of those casseroles the girls got from magazine recipes, and I never did lean that way myself.”
She turned at the door. “By the way, those were Freeman's beans.”
Nan left, and Faith decided to spend the night. The idea of going back to the cottage alone was both terrifying and exhausting.
After supper they put Ben to bed, popped some corn, and played Trivial Pursuit, to Samantha's infinite delight. Faith reminded her that this was a once-in-a-blue-moon occasion and she would always detest all forms of board games. She also enjoined her to secrecy. If Tom discovered she had played Trivial Pursuit, then backgammon, Othello, parcheesi, Chutes and Ladders, whatever, would not be far behind. It was pleasant to sit and be beaten, basking in the ordinariness of the situation, but when she climbed into bed at last, she was aware that her arms still ached from being treed, her cheek was sore, and she was still afraid. Pix had suggested reporting it to Earl, but Faith wanted to forget the whole thing. She wasn't going to be alone anymore and she'd be leaving soon. She wasn't sure if she was happy or not at the prospect. So many loose ends remained, but today's intimate experience with a spruce had given her a longing for impersonal sidewalks and forests of skyscrapers of her childhood.
When Ben came in and jumped on her bed the next morning, thrilled with the novelty of sleeping in a different house, Faith noticed at once that the fog, as predicted, had gone wherever it goes. It was a perfect Maine day.
She got up and dressed hurriedly. She wanted to look for the
White House steps, and she had a lot to do to get ready for Hope and Quentin. They had said late afternoon, but that could mean virtually anytime between two o'clock and midnight.
After bolting breakfast, Pix and Faith climbed into the Woody and set off on the trail. They drove straight to the area of Prescott Point where they had been on Saturday. After driving up and down the road searching fruitlessly, they finally admitted there was no indication of where the road to the White House was, or had been. Nothing suggested Jacob's Ladder either and they agreed the square could have been mistakenly identified.
They'd have to get in touch with Nan to find the old road and since she didn't have a phone, that meant going to her house. Pix volunteered to do it while Faith went back to the cottage. It was impossible to feel apprehensive with such a blue sky.
As Faith was dropping her off and fetching her son, she took a deliberately cheerful view. “The Hamiltons are bound to know where the road is, and it won't take me too long to get things in order. Quentin can always remake the bed if my hospital corners aren't taut enough. Call me and we can resume the search. Ben shouldn't be a problem.” Samantha was with Arlene for a joyful reunion after their fog-induced separation.
“Don't worry, I'll call the moment I have any news. Oh Faith, isn't this exciting! Even if it's not the gold, we've solved the puzzle.”
Pix phoned a half hour later. “Nobody's home! I'm so disappointed. I'll go back in an hour or so and keep checking until I find them. They can't have gone far. Freeman says the last time he went off island was in 1979. Hasn't needed to since. Nan does go up to Ellsworth to shop occasionally.”
“Well, let's hope she didn't go today. Talk to you later.”
It was almost four o'clock when Pix called again. “Still nobody home!” she cried. “Should I wait until tomorrow?”
“Why don't you try once more at dinnertime, island dinnertime that is ? And maybe by then Hope and Quentin will be here and can help us hunt.”
“All right, I'll let you know one way or the other.”
 
 
At five o'clock Hope and Quentin pulled up to the cottage in the Jeep Cherokee they had rented. Faith grabbed Ben and rushed out to meet them. Hope was getting out of the car in one swift motion. It was the way she did most things. Like her mother. They didn't look the same, but they moved the same way. Women who knew where they were going.
Faith hugged her sister warmly and turned her cheek to Quentin. It wasn't an air kiss, but it wasn't a big smacker either and that pretty much summed Quentin up. Nothing in excess. He and Hope looked as if they had just stepped out of the J. Crew catalogue. Faith knew for certain that everything Hope was wearing was brand-new, but it could just as well have been sailing in Newport for years. And Quentin's jacket was either an old favorite of his father's handed down or the equivalent at a price. Dressed for the part, they were delighted to be there.
“We've been having such fun, Fay. Maine is wonderful!”
“But the last few days were a bit foggy, don't you think?”
Hope and Quentin looked at each other in astonishment.
“Foggy? They've been the best of our trip. We were out sailing all day yesterday and the sun never stopped shining.”
Of course.
“Are you hungry? Why don't we go in and get something to drink and sit on the porch? I have a nice 1987 Bertani Catullo white chilling and some tidbits to go with it,” Faith proposed.

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