Free Family Vault by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

kettles, gathering up used dishes and fetching clean ones, Edith having provided about half the required number.
    The old retainer might have known there’d be a record turnout. The Kellings, one and all, adored a funeral, and with the disagreeable publicity this one had evoked they’d rallied in droves to prove they had nothing to hide. She caught a sputter here and there about not knowing better than to talk to reporters, but didn’t stop to listen.
    Thank goodness the Lackridges had come. Harry was making himself agreeable and Leila was interpreting for Aunt Caroline. That was a blessing, since Alexander would hardly have been up to it. He looked even grayer around the mouth than he had the night before. Some of the relatives were noticing.
    “Alex is taking it hard. Didn’t realize he was so fond of old Fred. Edith, these cheese puffs are marvelous. I cannot see how you do it all by yourself.”
    At last the tea, the sherry, the food, and the family were gone. Only Harry and Leila stayed on, she still talking and he still drinking, though by now Harry had switched to scotch out of his friend’s private stock. Sarah lit the library fire and shooed them toward it.
    “Go warm yourselves while I straighten up the drawing room.”
    Alexander roused himself to say, “You’ve been working all afternoon, Sarah. Can’t Edith do that?”
    “She’s washing dishes,” said Leila.
    “She is not,” Sarah retorted. “She’s downstairs soaking her corns and watching television. She’s furious with me because I wouldn’t let her go to the funeral.”
    “People were wondering why you both stayed away.”
    “Pity the obvious answer never occurred to them. Harry, before you quite finish that bottle, why don’t you fix my husband a drink of his own whiskey? Perhaps Leila and Aunt Caroline would like one, too.”
    “What about yourself?”
    “Not if anybody expects supper. It won’t be much, I warn you.”
    In fact, Sarah hadn’t the faintest idea what she was going to serve, but nobody seemed to care. She went back to picking up cups and glasses. As a rule, Alexander would have helped, but tonight he sat hunched in the vast leather armchair that was once Uncle Gilbert’s special place, nursing his drink and letting the others talk around him. Sarah looked in once or twice to take them ice or a few leftover canapes, and it seemed to her that he hadn’t moved a muscle during the intervals.
    She opened a tin of paté they’d got in a Christmas box and were saving for some grand occasion, and took a great deal of care making dainty sandwiches. Alexander had finicky tastes for a man. Those and a cup of soup, along with what had been served earlier, ought to suffice. They were none of them big eaters.
    When the food was ready she went downstairs and told Edith, “I’ve fixed us a tray so you can forget about supper. There’s soup on the stove. If that’s not enough, boil yourself a couple of eggs.”
    “They had the funeral on the news,” said the maid without moving her eyes from the flickering screen. “You wasn’t in it. They said you was home, prostrated with shock.”
    “I’ll be prostrated all right, before this day is over.”
    Sarah climbed the stairs one at a time with a rest in between, and picked up the last, heavy tray.

7
    “A LEX! ALEX, WHERE ARE you? It’s almost eight o’clock.”
    Caroline Kelling’s strident call woke Sarah from the soundest sleep she’d had in ages. Eight o’clock? They never slept that late. Could her husband—she froze, recalling old Tim O’Ghee sprawled half out of that sleazy boardinghouse cot.
    But no, Alexander was getting up. She could hear a muffled groan, the squeak of bedsprings, then water running in the bathroom between their bedrooms. Sarah jumped out of bed, called down the stairs, “Edith, tell her we’ll be down in a minute,” and snatched her oldest slacks and a bedraggled jersey out of her closet.
    Mariposa would be here on the dot of nine. Three