Jewel of the East (16 page)

“You have both grown a mile,” he murmured into the tops of their heads.

Maisie took a deep breath, inhaling their father’s smells of Old Spice and turpentine and that unnamable scent that was just his alone.

Gently, he put them both down.

With his feet back on the floor, Felix gazed up the length of their father, all six feet four inches of him. Starting with those familiar hiking boots he wore every winter, scuffed and laced with bright-red laces, past his favorite worn jeans that seemed about to tear in places but managed to hold out year after year, to the slight swell of his stomach pushing against his denim shirt, to his five o’clock shadow sprinkled across his chin
and cheeks, and then taking in his green eyes and tumble of dark curls just flecked with silver. Maybe there was a little more silver than the last time he’d seen him, Felix decided. But otherwise he was 100 percent their father, Jake Robbins.

He reached his long arm across to the counter and held up a Dunkin’ Donuts bag.

“Plain with chocolate sprinkles for you,” he said, handing a doughnut to Felix. “And a chocolate-glazed chocolate for you,” he told Maisie.

Felix bit into his doughnut and wondered if anything had ever tasted sweeter.

“Jake,” their mother said, and her voice startled both Maisie and Felix because they had forgotten all about her. “Napkins.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, winking at them. “The crumb patrol.”

A bit of awkwardness settled between their mother and father as he rooted around for napkins and distributed them. That was when Maisie and Felix remembered that their parents were no longer married or in love. In fact, they didn’t even like each other very much anymore.

“So,” their father said, “I couldn’t wait to see you guys, but I have to go check into the hotel and maybe catch a little shut-eye. I understand there’s
quite a shindig here tonight.”

“But you can’t go already!” Maisie said, spilling chocolate doughnut from her mouth.

“You just arrived,” Felix said.

Their father turned toward their mother, who was standing in her old, green bathrobe, her arms folded tightly across her chest and her favorite doughnut—a plain cruller—left untouched on a napkin beside her.

“I could take them with me,” he said carefully. “They could show me around town a bit.”

“Please, Mom,” Maisie pleaded.

“Well,” their mother said, and they could see her trying to decide what to do. “I suppose I can handle all the dinner preparations.”

“We’ll even pick up Great-Aunt Maisie,” their father said. “Deliver her here safe and sound.”

“No later than six,” their mother said sternly. “We have to start at six sharp or—”

“Six sharp,” their father said gently.

“Well then,” their mother said to Maisie and Felix. “What are you waiting for? Go and get dressed.”

A day with their father, just the three of them, was better than any Christmas present Maisie or Felix could imagine. They bounced on the bed in
his room at the Viking Hotel, and Maisie used all the free body lotion in the bathroom while Felix channel surfed on the flat-screen TV. Then they got in his rental car and led him past their school and Bannister’s Wharf and First Beach, trying in a few hours to fill in all the weeks and months they’d lived without him. They had lunch at The Fisherman’s Catch, big bowls of creamy clam chowder and stuffed quahogs, the two of them chattering the entire time and basking in having their father so near.

Walking back to the car, they ran into Jim Duncan and his grandparents, who were visiting from Saint Petersburg, Florida.

“This is my dad,” Felix said, practically bursting with joy.

Their father and Jim shook hands, and then he shook hands with Jim’s grandfather and grandmother, and they stood talking briefly about the weather in Florida compared to the weather here in Newport.

As if on cue, big, fat snowflakes began to drift lazily down, landing in their hair and eyelashes and coats.

Could today be any more perfect?
Maisie thought, slipping her red, mittened hand into her father’s big, woolly gloved one.

“I thought you were out of the picture,” Great-Aunt Maisie announced as she slid into the front seat of the rental car.

“Only technically,” their father said.

Great-Aunt Maisie adjusted her fur coat—this one silver and even fluffier than the other one—and harrumphed.

“It was my impression you had moved to Arabia,” she said.

“Qatar,” their father said.

His eyes met Maisie’s and Felix’s in the rearview mirror, and they could see that he was amused by Great-Aunt Maisie, not offended.

The nurse was still standing uncertainly by the car with the wheelchair that had delivered Great-Aunt Maisie to them.

“What are you waiting for?” Great-Aunt Maisie said to their father.

Their father shook his head and put the car in drive. Maisie was sure that the nurse looked relieved to see them leave.

The snow fell heavier and faster as they drove down the dark Newport streets. When they turned onto Bellevue Avenue, Great-Aunt Maisie let out a little moan.

“Home,” she said softly.

Her face stayed turned to look out the window.

“Penelope’s house,” she said, pointing to another mansion. “And Charles’s.” She pointed to another farther down the road.

When they headed down the long tree-lined driveway that led to the front door of Elm Medona, Great-Aunt Maisie sat up straighter.

“It always looks so beautiful in the snow,” she said.

Their father let out an appreciative low whistle. “It’s some house,” he said.

“Well, of course it is,” Great-Aunt Maisie said. “My father would only build a magnificent house. Phinneas Pickworth did nothing on a small scale.”

“What does it mean?” their father said, entering the circular drive in front of the house. “Elm Medona.”

Great-Aunt Maisie looked away from the window and at their father.

“Why, it’s an anagram,” she said. “Ask the children how much Phinneas Pickworth loved anagrams.”

Felix leaned forward.

“You mean, it isn’t a tree of some kind?”

Great-Aunt Maisie laughed. “You should know better than that by now,” she said.

She opened the door and slowly stepped out
into the snow. Maisie and Felix watched as she raised both of her arms upward toward the sky, threw her head back, and let loose a lovely, tinkling laugh of joy.

“Five fifty-eight,” their father told their mother when they entered the house.

Two maids, two butlers, and four security guards all hovered in the entrance.

“Thank you,” their mother said.

She had on a long, black velvet skirt and a white, satin blouse with small, satin-covered buttons down the front. The shirt was open enough to reveal a string of pearls resting at her collar.

“You look pretty,” their father said softly.

Their mother blushed and looked away from him. But Maisie and Felix sneaked smiles at each other.

One of the butlers had taken Great-Aunt Maisie’s coat, and another had arrived with a silver tray with five champagne glasses.

“Three of these have the real stuff,” their mother said. “And two have sparkling cider.”

“Where’s Great-Aunt Maisie?” Felix asked.

“Oh dear,” their mother said. “She’s wandered off.”

They all set off in search of her, quickly locating her halfway up the Grand Staircase, staring at the picture of her younger self that hung there.

“I remember this day,” she said, her gnarled finger tenderly touching the image. “It started out as such a good day. But then Thorne… well… it was the last time I spoke to my brother.”

Her finger paused on Uncle Thorne’s face at the edge of the picture.

“Darling,” their mother said, “we have oysters and pâté and—”

Great-Aunt Maisie raised her hand and shushed her.

“Who else is here?” she asked.

Was it Maisie’s imagination or did the dark sky turn even darker and the wind begin to howl?

“Just us,” their mother told her. “And the staff.”

Great-Aunt Maisie cocked her head to one side.

“The storm seems to be getting worse,” their father said.

But Great-Aunt Maisie wasn’t listening to them. Instead, she slowly began to make her way up the Grand Staircase.

Everyone rushed to follow her, their mother saying, “Darling, really, dinner is all ready.”

At the top of the stairs, Great-Aunt Maisie did not even pause. She continued in her slow, regal manner down the hallway.

To Maisie’s and Felix’s surprise, the wall that hid the secret staircase to The Treasure Chest gaped open.

“What in the world?” their mother said.

With determination, Great-Aunt Maisie kept moving, now heading up the stairway, Maisie and Felix and their parents close behind her.

The red velvet rope that usually stretched across the door of The Treasure Chest lay unhooked and dangling.

They all stopped in the doorway.

Behind them, the wind howled still more.

Inside The Treasure Chest, a man stepped out of the shadows. He had a head full of stark-white hair, small, round wire-rimmed glasses, and the biggest, droopiest snow-white mustache that any of them had ever seen. He wore an all-white suit with a vivid red silk ascot and matching pocket square. In one hand, he held a walking stick, ebony black with a climbing snake carved into it. At the top of the stick, where his hand rested on the snake’s head, two emerald eyes gleamed from
it and a gold tongue protruded.

Great-Aunt Maisie gasped.

The man grinned.

“Well, well,” he said.

Great-Aunt Maisie uttered just one word: “Thorne.”