The Mirrors (part fifty)

The Mirrors

(part fifty)

And because she and William were the help; because William did not enter the house, but on this exceptional day, while Charmante never bothered the men at their work…

The only information worthwhile to the medics, to the doctor and hospital staff, was given by Veronica and Carmine. Carmine’s possessor performed, emotive, a role of frailty and distraction, self-rebuke. Charmante almost mourned for him.

She and William played too…the easy roles, two servants a little slow, confused by facts, having to think a minute…

Rothesay died, sixty hours after his fall, with no police suspicions. An accident. But the living Rothesay had not been of that world, not able by Charleton or Godfrey to be seen…only the figure of a tyrant, their grandfather.

No law could account for such things.

When they were newlyweds, with William settled in Charmante’s house (she had put Clell in the closet), Albert drove them into town to visit Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner, being down with hay fever, hadn’t gone to the church.

“More down on her dignity,” Jane said. “She’d never go out and make a spectacle of herself, not for anything. Best if you do see her where you can have a private talk.”

But what was private, now, with family, where before she’d had only Esta?

And Mrs. Parkins, of course, Mr. Meeker…they all looked out for her. Private was the way her new sister saw Charmante. Maybe she had grown this way, maybe had sensed so many secrets that concerned her, held by others.

The holders were the dead. She could not have guessed at twelve, at twenty, at thirty-nine…that they moved on their own side, bringing truth to hearts empty for the lack of it.

“What are you writing down?”

“A letter to Esta. You know, she got her ABCs trying to teach her little boy his. I mean, Will, I want to have it all on paper, and then see if she’ll let me read it to her. I’ve been thinking how I’ve always thanked her for so many things I haven’t said.”

“Well, Albert, that’s sensible. You hear?” William squeezed her shoulder.

The hotel’s doorman followed into the elevator. “Mrs. Turner, up third. That’s right. She told me to look out.”

Albert, sparing the Wrights, slipped him a quarter. “No, I won’t go up. You come down when you’re ready. I’ll stick here and look at the papers.”

“Jane,” Chamante said, in the hall after the bell rang again, and the car bumped its descent, “didn’t come along either.”

“That’s a little bit because Mrs. Turner makes do on her dividends…”

A door at the hall’s end opened.

Mrs. Turner edged out, in a good suit—a frock jacket and ankle skirt, legs bare, feet in heels. A good suit of 1920, it might be…her figure still able to carry it.

“There’s a face I haven’t seen in a hundred years!” She tottered a little, but hugged Charmante and stood back. “Your mother’s there too.”

96

The Mirrors

The Mirrors (part fifty-one)

(2020, Stephanie Foster)