Legacy of Secrets (75 page)

Brigid had outdone herself, and a few minutes before our guests were to arrive, she hovered anxiously in the dining room, whisking away the eager dogs and cats, dressed in her finest black silk with a gardenia corsage, but with no apron because she was also a guest at this ball. She had slicked her hair down with a drop of water and anchored it firmly behind her ears with my diamond arrows, and she was wearing black stockings and her little high-heeled boots.

“You look dazzling, Brigid,” Eddie said approvingly. “And the table looks even more dazzling!” Hand in hand, he and Shannon inspected the buffet, while I observed both of them with satisfaction. I had delved deep into my wardrobes and dressed them both in the family’s finest. Shannon was in a Fortuny velvet that had belonged to Mammie, a long simple tunic whose myriad tiny pleats clung to her tall, slender body like molten silver. Her hair was a vibrant coppery cloud and Lily’s diamond necklace
glittered at her throat. Eddie, who was holding her hand, looked as though he never wanted to let go.

If ever a man looked good in evening clothes, he did. Forget Molly’s Ralph Lauren lover: handsome Eddie wore Pa’s old Savile Row dinner jacket as though he had been born to the aristocracy. It might have been tailored especially for him.

It had not failed to cross my mind, and I’m sure Brigid’s also, that this might be our own “farewell party,” as well as Shannon and Eddie’s. Not that we are expecting the worst, but at our age you tend to savor each moment, just in case it is your last. Besides, who knew when we might have another excuse for such a shindig? Hence Brigid had outdone herself with her buffet, and I had brought out the last of Pa’s old wines and vintage champagnes from the cellar.

I had decked myself out in tulip-red chiffon from Valentino 1970. It moved sensuously around the body to the hips and fell in a delicious many-layered flutter around my silly sparrow-boned ankles. I wore red satin sandals to match and a load of worthless but spectacular jewelry: a wide gold-mesh necklace, bracelet and earrings studded with “gemstones” in red and blue and green, which Pa had bought Mammie in a bazaar when they were in India. The bracelets jangled satisfyingly when I moved and the earrings swished around my face the way I liked them to, and I had tucked a gardenia in my red curls. I’d splashed on a large amount of L’Heure Bleue, rouged up my cheeks and my lips, flung on my matching chiffon stole edged with a ruffle of red feathers, and now I was ready to greet my guests.

We stood in the hall, admiring each other and looking anxiously at our watches, thinking Joanna was late just as she floated downstairs toward us, a lofty goddess in a simple black Calvin Klein floor-length silk shift, without a single jewel. We drew in our breaths in admiration and I thought how proud Bob Keeffe would have been of his women, if only he had been able to see them tonight.

The guests began arriving at the appointed hour of nine,
because no one comes politely late for a party in Ireland. They just can’t wait to get there and begin enjoying themselves. The four of us formed a little receiving line and I happily introduced my new loved ones to my old cronies, and to the dozens of young people who had come all the way from Dublin and Cork and Galway for the party, staying locally with friends and relatives in their chilly “Big Houses.”

But there was nothing chilly about Ardnavarna that night. Like us, it looked its glorious best, with fires blazing cheerfully in every grate. Even the dalmatians wore red satin bows, though the clever orange cats would stand for no such fripperies. Soon the champagne was flowing, and so was the conversation, and the sound of music lifted to the old rafters. I stood to one side, watching them all, dancing, laughing, chattering, and I thought about how many parties Ardnavarna must have seen.

There’s something about a party that goes to my head like strong wine; a heady excitement that I want everyone around me to share. I wanted them to take this memory of Ardnavarna home with them so that, many years later, they would look back and say to each other, “Do you remember that magical night at Ardnavarna? And old Maudie Molyneux? How beautiful the old house was, and how stylish old Maudie was, and how Brigid had prepared a feast fit for the gods?”

Speaking of a feast, it was time for supper. I picked up the hunting horn that had belonged to Lily and Ciel’s pa when he was Master of the Hunt, and placed it to my lips. The piercing “view halloo” ricocheted from the walls as my triumphant playing summoned them all to eat. The band stopped in mid-chord and headed for the bar. Amid the laughter, the guests flocked to devour Faithless Brigid’s feast, though they all said it was almost too beautiful to spoil by eating. Brigid stood proudly by her table accepting their compliments, red of face and with an anxious smile as she watched them fill their plates. I thrust a glass of champagne
in her hand and said, “Brigid, my old darlin’, isn’t this the best party we ever gave at Ardnavarna?”

“You always say that, Maudie,” she says, grinning at me.

“And isn’t it always true?” I reply, smiling back at her.

But this time it really was the best party ever given at Ardnavarna, for no one wanted to leave, even with the dawn, and hadn’t I my lovely “grandchildren” with me? And who knew when I would see them again?

I
MOPED AROUND THE HOUSE
like a lost dog after they left, and even those darned creatures were miserable, following me, ears down, tails drooping, their claws clattering on the oaken floorboards as we roamed the house, trapped by the incessant rain and
nostalgie de la vie.

“How many years has it been,” I asked myself, staring out at the gray-green rain-drenched garden, “since I last traveled? Ten? Fifteen maybe? Jayzus!” I shouted triumphantly, quoting the notorious Lily, as I came up with the solution to my melancholy, if not the murder.

Hurrying back upstairs, I took my sapphires from the top dresser drawer, remembering Eddie saying that if I ever wanted to sell them they would fetch enough to live out my life in comfort, and I laughed out loud. “The hell with comfort,” I cried. “I’m for adventure!”

Still chortling, pleased with myself, I swept downstairs, back in my old sparkling form. “Brigid,” I yelled authoritatively so that she wouldn’t argue. “Pack our bags. We’re off to New York.
And
we’re flying Concorde.”

I felt like a three-year-old filly at the starting gate when the plane took off a week later, though I have to admit the poor ground crew quailed when they saw my luggage. I suppose a steamer trunk is not seen too often anymore, especially on air travel. Plus all my other ancient bits and pieces of solid leather valises and gladstone bags and Paris hatboxes. My theory was that everyone else these days
travels light, so there would be plenty of room for my stuff, and besides, I’ve discovered that one of the few advantages of being old is that no one likes to say “no” to you. And I have to say that British Airways took us in their expert stride.

Brigid was wearing her best black and her trotty little boots (I had forbidden the Wellingtons though I would not have put it past her to have secreted them somewhere in the luggage) and without, thank heavens, the ankle socks. She was wearing a sweeping feathered hat that put my own neat felt chapeau to shame, but my navy suit, Chanel 1964, with its gold buttons and white braid trim, looked as up-to-date as anything in the shops now, and my white gloves, high-heeled navy pumps, and pearls were exactly what a lady should wear. Oh, we looked a grand pair, Brigid and I, setting off together on our adventure. She crossed herself, closing her eyes and clutching my hand as we took off, and I grinned as that old familiar whoosh of excitement rippled through me, and we headed into the unknown in search of Bob Keeffe’s murderer.

Now, I’ve always liked New York. It’s flamboyant and you know I’m partial to that, and I also adore grand hotels. We swept up to the portals of the Ritz-Carlton in grand style in a black-windowed stretch limo. I tilted my hat to exactly the right impish angle and patted my red curls into place, tipping the doorman extravagantly as he summoned a relay of bellboys to deal with our baggage. And then, feeling in my element, I swept into the foyer like a queen. The manager hurried toward us. In an instant, he took in the mounds of good old leather luggage spattered with labels from times and hotels and ships and trains long since past: Raffles and the White Star Line, Cunard and Claridges, the Cipriani and the Orient Express, the Pera Palace, Istanbul, and the Cascades in Egypt and the Blue Train and the Negresco.

“It is a pleasure to have you both staying with us, Madame Molyneux,” he said, recognizing class when he saw it.

“Faith, ’tis an age since I’ve been travelin’,” I said, slipping
into the brogue I can do so well when it suits me, and which never fails to charm a man, and he immediately upgraded us to his best suite, a delightful bower of luxury and comfort that was soon filled with bouquets and chocolates and bottles of champagne. I gave the valet my riding boots to be shined and hung up my hunting jacket, just in case, and I told the sweet little maid sent to assist me, the details of every garment as she hung them in the closet; where it was bought and the date and where it was worn. I’m an old chatterbox, I know, but beneath it all my brain was fizzling with ideas.

Brigid looked tired; she was never used to the travelin’ the way I was, and I tucked her up in bed and sent to room service for strong black tea, to be served in a mug and not a cup, just the way she likes it, and cinnamon toast. “It’s my turn to pamper you, Brigid,” I told her firmly. “And on this trip,
you
are going to be waited on.”

She sighed happily, spreading herself out in the enormous king-size bed, switching channels on the TV as though she had been used to it all her life. I patted her hand and kissed her quickly on the cheek and told her she need not get out of bed the whole time if that’s what she wished, and then I left her to her cinnamon toast, and took myself off to the lavish sitting room to think things out.

I kicked off my shoes and sat on the elegant sofa, nibbling on a biscuit while I tallied up Lily’s legacy of disasters and victims.

Somewhere in that list was the answer to the mystery. But where to begin?

I picked up the phone and placed a call to Shannon in Nantucket.

“Hello,” she answered, sounding surprised that anyone should be telephoning her.

“Maudie here,” I yelled, because I’ve never been able to bring myself to quite believe they can hear you all those miles away unless you shout. “I’m in New York. I just checked into the R.C.”

“The Church?” she asked, bewildered.

I laughed. “The Ritz-Carlton, silly. Brigid and I have come to help you solve the mystery, and I think I’ve got a headstart on where to begin to look. What about you? Any clues turn up yet?”

“I wish,” she replied wistfully.

“Well, I’ve been going through the list of Lily’s victims, and I have decided that if the murder is connected to the past, as we believe it is, then we must find the descendants of those victims. I’ve got my list all ready, so why don’t you and Eddie get yourselves back here to New York, and we’ll get started?”

They arrived the next morning and my heart thrilled at the sight of their eager faces. They seemed to light up the room when they strode into it, so young and beautiful, so confident and at the same time so tremulously insecure, as only the young and those in love can be.

I greeted them and said briskly, “It’s a good thing Brigid and I are here to help you, since you don’t seem to be getting very far on your own. Now, let’s get down to business.

“First, I think we should find out what happened to Daniel and Finn O’Keeffe.”

It didn’t take Eddie long to find out that the brokerage house James and Company was still very much in business, and that a Mr. Michael O’Keeffe James was its chairman. And it took only a little longer to discover that the famous multimillion-dollar chain of Danstores was one and the same as the original Daniel’s started in Boston at the turn of the century. And that the man who was now its head was the popular Senator Jim O’Keeffe.

I placed a call to Mr. Michael James, told him who I was and that I was visiting from Ireland, and that I believed our families used to know each other “in the old days.”

“They surely did,” he replied with a laugh, and he invited us around right away to see him.

Shannon and I gussied ourselves up, powdering our noses, and brushing our curls. She was in jeans and a short fitted red jacket, and I was wearing a little bottle-green St.
Laurent suit from 1975, and a hat with a tiny veil and a silver feather, and I found myself trotting along like Brigid in my heels, to keep up with Shannon’s long-legged lope.

The offices of James and Company were even more palatial than when Finn O’Keeffe had first started working there. The original building had been torn down long ago and a modern skyscraper erected in its place, though it wasn’t one of Bob Keeffe’s. Michael James came out from his office to greet us. He was a tall sandy-haired man, older than I expected, in his sixties. He had brown eyes and he didn’t look anything like “black Irish” Finn, except maybe for the wide smile and the easy charm. “I feel I already know you,” he exclaimed, taking my bony hand in both of his, and beaming down at me. “Or at least, I know most of the Molyneuxes, from the stories my dad told me.” His eyes twinkled as he added, “My father was Finn O’Keeffe, you know.”