The Disenchanted Widow (17 page)

The mechanic took up position in his usual armchair and raised the binoculars.

Good news. Mrs. Hailstone was in. Her car was parked under the big ash as usual. He trained the binoculars on her bedroom window. The crocus-print curtains were open. That was more good news. He panned over to the back door.

At that very moment, the door opened.

His pulse quickened.

But it was only young Herkie. Gusty saw the boy go over to the well cover and push at the stone weight with his toe. Watched as he hunkered down to inspect it, followed him as he sauntered down the yard and disappeared behind the woodshed.

Gusty made a mental note to warn the boy again about the dangers of the well.

He pulled back to the door once more and refocused.

He’d struck gold.

There she was, the object of his desires, filling the frame in a thigh-skimming nightdress: pink with satin bows.

Oh, God!
He’d never seen so much of a woman’s figure in his life. He tracked her legs as she walked—leisurely—in the direction of the clothesline, zooming in on her ankles, moving slowly up the shapely calves, to linger on her tantalizing derriere.

A small breeze was lifting the hem, ever so slightly.

She reached the clothesline and began unpinning pairs of tights.

She bent over.

Oh, holy God!
The binocs began to shake in his hands.

She was wearing matching knickers, the frilly trim riding high on her smooth hips.

All too soon she stood up again and unfastened a couple of bath sheets. There was quite a lot on the line. More dipping down to the basket. More precious time to focus on those buttocks.

He was sweating now, blinking wildly so as not to miss a square inch of her loveliness. The lenses needed a wipe, but…

Abruptly she turned.

Damn!

The bosom he was so looking forward to ogling was concealed—hidden from his sight by the pile of laundry she carried.

She dropped a sock, bent down to retrieve it. Stood up, shielded her eyes from the sun—and looked in his direction.

Hell!

Instinctively, Gusty sank to his knees.

Veronica grunted.

What if she’d seen him? Impossible. A ray of sunlight glinting off the field glasses? Maybe.

When he dared peer out the window again, there was no sign of her. The back door was shut.

Undeterred, he swept the powerful lenses back to the bedroom window. She’d be getting dressed now. His heart was beating like a timpani drum, his knees aquiver.

She was entering the room. He saw her dump the washing on the bed. He blinked to get a clearer view.

Then…crocus print! Nothing but bloody crocus print. He lowered the binoculars. She’d drawn the curtains.

Ah, damn!

He collapsed back into the armchair, luxuriating in the brief pleasure Mrs. Hailstone had aroused. Had she spotted him? He didn’t think so, not at that distance. Not that it mattered now. He’d hit the jackpot. Needed to get his breath back and was reluctant to vacate the room just yet.

Veronica slept on.

He plonked the binoculars down on the dressing table. A delicate scent bottle of ruby glass pitched forward, and before he could save it, it fell to the floor, breaking into little pieces. An ancient, musky fragrance suffused the room.

With resignation, he got down to pick up the pieces. Yet moments into the task, he wondered why he was bothering. Only he and the piglet would see the mess. On the other hand…what if Veronica injured herself? With that in mind, he hastily gathered up the glass fragments and threw them into a trinket drawer.

His hands were wet and sticky with the scent. He wiped them on the bib of his overalls and settled back into the chair.

His eyes drifted about the Turret Room. It had never really interested him much, but now he felt the stirrings of curiosity as his eye fell on a brass-bound trunk. There was something sticking out of it. A bit of material, not unlike the color of Mrs. Hailstone’s nightdress.

That
certainly merited investigation.

The hasps on the trunk, stiff with age, were hard to raise. He took out his Swiss Army knife, cocked an ear. Not a sound, apart from the chickens having a chinwag in the yard below. Hopefully the oul’ boy would not wake up for another wee while.

He levered at the hasps, twisting and tugging. One by one they sprang free, each with a nerve-jolting
thwack
.

The heavy lid, once freed, creaked and groaned like the outer door to a pharaoh’s tomb as he eased it up. The whiff of age-old camphor and stale scent had him reaching for his handkerchief to catch a sneeze. Having dried his eyes and with vision cleared, he peered into the trunk. He saw that a heavy velvet coverlet was protecting the contents.

He drew it back in amazement.

The pink material he’d seen protruding from the trunk was in fact the frill of a petticoat. He tugged. Out it came, flounce upon flounce of shiny satin, a tumbling rush of bows and braid and lace.

The softness of the fabric made his hands shake. He’d never touched the like of it before.

He held it to his cheek.

So this is what Mrs. Hailstone must feel like!

He caught his breath, looked again at the trunk. What else might be in there? Tenderly he set aside the petticoat and got down on his knees. He would delve deeper.

Sure enough, the gaudy undergarment was a mere foretaste of what was to come. The trunk was crammed with ladies’ underwear. His grubby hands began plundering the secret hoard as he reveled in an orgy of newfound soft, downy, silken, yielding textures. He unearthed nightgowns and slips, corsets, girdles, stockings, suspender belts, garters, bloomers, knickers.

In a matter of minutes the floor around him was strewn with lingerie.

The mechanic sat back on his heels, marveling at the spectacle: a thrilling new world from a box in a room he’d never had much cause to visit. Hardly knew it existed until Mrs. Hailstone showed up.

But, oh…what could
that
be? Something else had caught his eye while he was hauling out the underwear. He peered into the trunk again.

Yes, there it was at the bottom: a large, rectangular box.

He lifted it out.

On the cover, Jean Harlow pouted up at him, her bosom thrusting out of a peach-tone brassiere.
GIVE YOURSELF A LITTLE LIFT
urged a speech bubble above her head. And across her midriff, the words
THE ULTIMATE BREAST ADORNMENT
.

He pulled open the box.

An extraordinary garment flubbered out onto the floor.

An elasticized contrivance in the style of a brassiere.

He turned it over and did a double take. Was he seeing things?

A pair of very ample rubber breasts, sporting maroon nipples, was staring back up at him.

He could not believe his eyes.

He reached down and gave each a squeeze. They felt not unlike the rubber bulb horn on his old bicycle but were a bigger handful by far, and for that reason much more rewarding to the touch.

He carried them over to a cheval mirror and held them up against his chest.

Thump, thump.

“Hoi! Are ye up there?”

His uncle’s summons from below was startlingly loud.

The strange garment fell from his grasp and bounced into a corner.

He wheeled around, panic-stricken.

The floor! To Gusty it resembled what a stripper’s changing room might look like after a night on the boards. If the oul’ shite saw
this
, what would he think atall?

Frantically he began gathering up the scattered lingerie and piling it back in the trunk.

“Hoi! Are ye up there?”

The oul’ boy again, sounding more impatient now.

Frantically he stuffed the last of the lingerie down and slammed the lid.

That was everything out of sight. Or so he thought.

“Come on, Veronica,” he urged, going to the door.

Before dutifully joining her master, Veronica took a last wistful look at the fallen falsies in the corner. They most definitely merited further inspection…

Excited, she hopped down from the daybed.

“That’s a good girl.”

He bundled the piglet into his arms and dashed from the Turret Room, slamming the door behind him.

His secret was safe. Or was it?

The spirit of the decadent Viscount had been unleashed. Whether for good or ill, Lucien Percy would roam the corridors of Kilfeckin once more.

Chapter twenty

R
ose McFadden was not having such a good time of it these days, and she put it all down to that new woman from Belfast. Not only had she got the job with Father Cassidy, but Gusty had given her Aunt Dora’s house
as well
, when it wasn’t even his to give. And God alone knew what that might lead to. Because once a woman got her toe in the door of a nice house, and her feet under the table, she could maybe squat there like a clocking hen for all eternity.

As she pedaled along the sun-dappled road that led to Kilfeckin Manor, Rose’s mind was in a flurry. There was enough to be done without that Hailstone woman stirring up a storm.

Uncle Ned needed looking after since taking poorly and Gusty wasn’t much help. A house with only men about it was not a normal house, anyway. A woman’s hand was needed to keep things tidy and stop the roof falling in on the top of them. Sure if there were no women around, heavens above, what kind of state would the world be in?

Rose was cogitating on all of this as she pedaled up the driveway toward Kilfeckin Manor. She was out of practice—like the bike itself, which had been screaking in protest from the minute she’d left home.

Now I really must get my Paddy to oil them wheels, she thought as she dismounted in the yard and parked the bike under a gooseberry bush.

She noticed that Gusty’s truck was not in the shed. But that was not unusual, for between the garage work and the barkeep stints for Etta Strong, she rarely saw him anyway.

Ned Grant had made Herkie Halstone rich by a whole £2 and 60p. His ma had been very impressed.

“God, son, what did ye do tae make all that?” she’d asked in surprise when he tipped the sum of money onto the table.

“Well, I went up and asked the oul’ boy if he wanted anything done, and he said, ‘Ye wouldn’t empty me pot under the bed there, son?’”

“Thought ye said he peed out the windee.”

He hadn’t been expecting her to say that. “Aye—I mean yes—but…but at night when it’s dark…aye, at night when it’s dark…he…he can’t see till piss, I mean pee, out the windee, so he doz it in the pot under the bed instead.”

Herkie was proud of his quick thinking and fully intended using the same tactic again.

Lying in the rear field, musing on this recent success, he was alerted by the screeching of a bicycle coming into the yard.

His little heart lifted. The moneybags in the big white shoes had finally shown up.

He waited until the woman was safely through the front door before slipping out of hiding. He would peep in the kitchen window and seize his chance when she went upstairs with the oul’ boy’s tea.

Ned’s face broadened into a toothless smile when he saw his favorite niece in the doorway.

“God, Rose, is it yerself? I didn’t hear ye come in there.” The old man’s voice, normally all grinding gears and anger shifts for the nephew, was softer now, holding a cadence that only his niece and a few others could draw forth. “Ye can turn that wireless off, ’cos there’s nothin’ on it but things for nippers at this time-a day.”

“Don’t stir yourself, Uncle Ned,” Rose said, setting her tray down. “And don’t forget to put yer teeth in.”

“Begod, I thought I had them in me already.”

Ned took the dentures from a chipped mug on the locker, a mug that read
TEETH
,
LIKE STARS
,
COME OUT AT NIGHT
. The dentures had belonged to his dead brother, Silvester. Ned, a man who believed in letting nothing go to waste, had made sure to remove them from the still-fresh corpse—along with a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles—just as St. Peter was throwing open the pearly gates and Mr. Turtle, the undertaker, was en route to dress the body.

“So, how’ve ye been since I last seen ye, Uncle Ned?” Rose asked kindly, pulling up a Chippendale chair and settling herself. “How’s that old chest?”

“Ah, now. Dr. Brewster was over yesterday and put the scope on me, and said it was nothin’ but a wee touch of indigestion. He give me a bottle for the tickle of it.”

“Well, y’know, Ned, my Paddy had that old tickle, too, and Dr. Brewster tolt him something the same. But he tolt him that it would be highly desirable if he give up the smokin’. Those were the very words he used: ‘highly desirable.’”

Ned registered Rose’s hint at his pipe smoking, but said nothing. His pipe was one of the few pleasures left to him, and he’d no intention of giving it up.

“So I got him a bottle of Mrs. Troutman’s Chesty Solutions,” continued Rose, “and d’ye know, he took a couple of sips and the cough went away. So I’ll get you a bottle of it for you, too, next time I’m comin’.”

She poured tea and proffered a plate of cake.

“Good enough,” said Ned, his hand, now resembling a redemption claw in an arcade machine, grabbing up the cake.

“But there’s something else I wanna tell ye. Something that’ll cure ye completely of that chest of yours, as well as any other pain or ache a body might be suffering, and it doesn’t involve a tablet or hospital or anything like that, ’cos it’s a miracle.”

Ned pushed himself up on the time-worn bolster, hope inflating like a birthday balloon. A miracle cure! Something that might render him virile and robust and full of pep once more. What could it be?

“Now…it concerns an Italian saint by the name of Padre Pio.”

“Aw, I see,” said Ned glumly, the balloon of hope shrinking miserably. He had little time for prayers and saints. He’d had enough of religion with his late wife, who’d been a wimple away from a convent when they met, and throughout most of their marriage had blamed him for parting her from her vocation.