Page 111 of Road Trip
It was dark wood, with carved detailing and a small brass crest on the hinged lid.
Therese craned her neck to get a better view as Esme raised the lid and dumped the contents into her lap. There was a small red leather-bound book; an oval framed daguerreotype; a short, slender string of pearls; and a folded handkerchief, yellowed, with faded embroidered flowers.
“I can’t say why I didn’t toss this out,” she went on. “Obviously nothing here of any value. The pearls aren’t even real. I gave it all a cursory glance, stuck the box on the mantel over there, and didn’t give it another thought. Until…”
She pointed at Therese. “Until after you came poking about, asking questions and making a nuisance of yourself.”
“Is that…” Therese started. “Are those things Kathleen’s?”
“I believe so.” Esme picked up the book. “Pride and Prejudice.” She traced a finger along a faded line of script on the flyleaf and read aloud. “‘For Kathleen. On her sixteenth birthday. Fondly, DER.’ That would be my great-aunt Delia.”
Maeve’s eyes widened.
Esme handed her the daguerreotype. It showed a pensive young woman in profile, hair in a long braid that hung over one shoulder and a string of pearls around her long, pale neck.
“This must be your great-grandmother. It’s not anyone I recognize from any of our family photos.”
“She must have left this stuff behind, the night Delia sent her away,” Maeve said. She looked up at the old woman. “Are you giving these things to us?”
“Why not?” Esme said. “I’ve no use for more things in my life. As my darling brother pointed out to me just this week.”
“I thought you said your brother was dead,” Therese piped up.
Esme gave her a cool look. “No, I believe I said he could be in hell for all I cared. But as it turns out, Geoffrey is very much alive, and even more insufferable than I’d remembered.”
A small table beside the settee held a cloudy crystal glass. Esme tipped it to her lips, drank, and smacked her lips. “I don’t suppose either of you would care for a drink? I’m having gin, but the bottle’s in the kitchen, and I can’t trouble myself to fetch it. You may, if you like.”
“Uh, no thanks. We’re actually about to leave for Dublin. And I’m driving.”
“And it’s a little early for me,” Therese said. “When was the last time you saw your brother previously?”
“Hmm. It must have been at Papa’s funeral. Say, thirty-five years?”
“You haven’t seen or spoken to your own brother in all that time?” Maeve asked.
“Why would I? There’s no love lost between us. Papa’s will settled Geoffrey with the house in London, and you see what he left me.” She gestured around her at the parlor’s faded Victorian floral wallpaper. “I was no more than an afterthought.”
“What did he want?” Therese asked.
Instead of answering, Esme pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of the hoodie. She lit one with a tarnished silver lighter, inhaled, then exhaled an impressive plume of smoke.
Maeve tugged at the collar of her shirt. The room was oppressively hot and now the fog of cigarette smoke made her eyes water.
“What do you suppose he wanted?” Esme said. “Money. Geoffrey could never manage his own affairs. Married three times, each woman younger and worse than the one before, and each, I suspect, took with her a sizeable portion of his inheritance when she left.”
The old woman flicked ash into a teacup on the side table and her eyes narrowed. For once, she looked a little rattled.
“As dull as he is, Geoffrey does have one talent, and it’s sniffing out opportunities. He turned up here this week, on my doorstep, to say he’d seen a newspaper article about a portrait of Lady Geraldine Fitzhugh being sold at auction in New York. Of course he knew the painting had been stolen in the IRA raid, and he had questions.”
The sisters waited.
“I told him that I knew nothing about the portrait and I suggested that it had probably been in the hands of some criminals—like all those artworks looted by the Nazis during the war.”
“Do you think he believed you?” Therese asked.
“One can never tell what Geoffrey is thinking. But after he left, I rang up my friend who helped arrange the sale of the painting, and he assured me that it would be impossible for the painting to be traced back here. So I’m preferring to think that my brother was simply out of funds, once again, and decided to take a fishing expedition back here to Tarrymore.”
She looked the sisters over and now there was a malicious twinkle in her eyes.
