When she appeared at the kitchen door with a loaded tray, Qwilleran jumped up and carried it to the table. Older women always liked Qwilleran’s courtly manners, which he had learned “at his mother’s knee,” he liked to say. He knew very well they would make a positive impression on Lish’s grandmother.
They sat at a Queen Anne tea table, and Mrs. Carroll poured tea into thin porcelain cups. “This is Darjeeling,” she said, “best with a little warm milk.” She raised the silver cream pitcher tentatively.
He said, “Please.”
At that point Qwilleran inquired, “Do you feel inclined to tell me the romantic story about your collection of shoes? I assure you I would never be bored.”
“You promise?” she cried, eager to tell all. “When I was a young woman, I attended the Lockmaster Academy and studied ballet. One of our recitals was attended by a group of young men, including Dr. Wendell Carroll, who was specializing in foot surgery. He said later that he fell in love with my tiny feet. We were eventually married and started a collection of miniature shoes. Whenever Dell returned from a medical conference in Chicago or another big city, he’d burst into the house shouting: Edie! I found another shoe!”
She cast a wistful glance at the china cabinet. They sat in thoughtful silence for a moment or two. Then Qwilleran asked, “Did you ever know a teacher named Agatha Burns? She’s a hundred years old, and I’m writing a column about her.”
“Yes, indeed! She was an inspiration! She even encouraged me to write poems in Latin, and one of them won a prize! Fifteen dollars! I bought a typewriter with it—secondhand manual. I still have it! I suppose you use a computer.”
“No, I use a vintage electric typewriter that reads my mind and knows what key I’m going to press next. But there’s nothing like an old manual with its clattering keys, loud bells, and the authoritative thump when the carriage returns.”
She appreciated the humor and swayed with mirth.
“May I call you Edythe? It’s a name with a pleasant sound.”
“Please do,” she said.
“Edythe, have you ever thought of presenting Mount Vernon to the community as a memorial to the three Carroll doctors—together with your exquisite antiques—to be admired and revered as a museum?”
Tears welled into her eyes, and she dabbed them with a handkerchief—a real one, with lace trimming. “Oh, I don’t know what to say!” she cried. “I’m overcome with emotion at your kind suggestion. You don’t know what it would mean to me, Mr. Qwilleran.”
“Please call me Qwill,” he said in the mellifluous voice that had worked miracles in the past. “I’m not aware of your plans for the house, but whatever they are, I wish you would consider honoring three generations of medical men in this way.
“Your antiques would be admired by visitors from all over the United States. One room could be set aside for the pioneer doctors and their primitive medical equipment: the saws they used for amputations without anesthesia . . . the medicines they mixed themselves . . . the folding operating table carried in the doctor’s buggy for surgery in the patient’s kitchen. The county historical society has plenty of such relics that they could lend, including what must be the world’s largest collection of bedpans!”
Overlooking the whimsical exaggeration, Mrs. Carroll said abruptly, “My granddaughter is expecting to inherit the house.”
“Would she be willing to share it with the community?” He knew it was an absurd question.
“I’m afraid not. She’ll sell it to the highest bidder to make money—for whatever purpose. She sees it as a mall or amusement park, although I’m sure she says it simply to horrify me.”
“Has your will been written?”
“It’s at the law office, being revised.” She bit her lip before saying, “Alicia and her driver are out of town, and I went to the house to check its condition. I was appalled! There were food containers on my lovely mahogany dining table . . . soiled clothing on the Orientals . . . and garbage in the kitchen sink. Alicia was never very tidy in her ways, but this! It must be her . . . driver! I don’t know what to do!”
“May I make a suggestion, Edythe?”
The sound of her first name brought her to attention.
“Of course!”
“Call your attorney without delay! He might advise hiring a caretaker . . . changing the locks on the doors . . . and swift action on a revised will. Tell him you want it to be the Carroll Memorial Museum. There’s nothing of the sort in the whole county!” He stopped suddenly, remembering the dashed plans for a Klingenschoen Museum. Then he said with less vehemence, “Was Mount Vernon your idea?”
“My father-in-law’s. He was a great admirer of George Washington.”
“All the more reason why you should preserve it. Don’t wait till it’s too late.”
As Qwilleran drove away from Mrs. Carroll’s apartment in Ittibittiwassee Estates, he had a great feeling of satisfaction. One thing had to be made clear: He wanted to stay out of the picture.
That evening when he and Polly had their nightly phone chat, she said, “It was a quiet day at the library. What did you do, dear?”
“Worked on my Tuesday column. Have you been doing your homework?”
“Yes. Do you realize the importance of aisle width in a bookstore? Physically and psychologically! There must be plenty of room for customers and staff to move around. It’s good for a bookstore to be crowded at times, but not too crowded so that individual customers feel jostled.”
“I see,” Qwilleran said. “Quite an absorbing subject.”
“But I’m taking an evening off for the bird club,” she said. “The speaker is an expert on the tufted titmouse.”
“Is that a bird?” he asked slyly.
“An adorable little bird—with a yellow breast.”
“Strange name for a bird. Why is it called a titmouse?”
“Would you like to attend the meeting—and bring up the subject?”
“Maybe I will. What are they having for dinner? Chicken potpie again?”
It was the easy rambling of two close friends who talk to each other on the phone every evening.
“À bientôt,” she said.
“À bientôt.”
NINE
As Qwilleran was leaving the barn Tuesday morning, he was accompanied to the exit by the Siamese, who sat on their haunches and awaited his farewell as if they knew what he was saying. He always told them where he was going, what he would be doing, and when he would return. After he left, they would race around the barn, whisking papers off the desk and overturning wastebaskets. As Cool Koko would say, When the man’s away, the cats will play.
Qwilleran drove to the town of Brrr, which he knew only for its superlative burgers at the Black Bear Café in the Hotel Booze. For the first time he noticed the small park across the street, with its modest fountain and uncomfortable benches on which no one cared to sit.
His curiosity aroused, Qwilleran drove around town and saw a thriving business district . . . a monument to the Scots who founded the town . . . a fringe of residential streets . . . and the broad avenue known as the Parkway. It was lined with stone residences of impressive size, built in the nineteenth century, and at the very end, gleaming like a beacon in the sunlight, was the white frame replica of Mount Vernon, built by the second Dr. Carroll. It had the red roof and broad lawns of the original, but the grass needed cutting.
Qwilleran’s real reason for visiting Brrr was to meet Maxine Pratt, who would now handle the sound effects for the show. He drove down a side street that circled the hotel and sloped down to the harbor. On the boardwalk a young woman in yachting cap and royal-blue jumpsuit was giving orders to a young blond giant grasping a hammer. He nodded as she pointed and explained, and then he trotted down the pier to fix loose boards.