Free Terrible Tide by Charlotte MacLeod Page A

amusing. “If Stoodley knew what a jungle the groves of academe can be, he’d think twice about turning me loose in here. Be that as it may, I’d still rather you stayed close to me. For more reasons than one, if I dare say so.”
    Holly wasn’t sure how to take that. “So that while I’m watching you, you can keep an eye on me? Maybe Earl Stoodley’s been talking to you, too.”
    “I assure you he hasn’t.”
    Cawne looked so discomfited that Holly apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I didn’t realize what I was taking on till I got here. I thought Cliff House would be full of mustache cups and antimacassars. Instead, here’s all this priceless stuff. It’s scary.”
    “I can see it would be,” he agreed. “For me their value is in their historical associations, but I know some people do pay tremendous sums for the dubious privilege of owning pieces that ought to be in public museums. Well, since we have to wait for the wig stand, what shall we do to fill the time? I’ll let you pick one.”
    “How about this Bible box? See how well it’s preserved?”
    “If you say so.” Cawne didn’t act thrilled by her choice, though he started loading his camera while Holly set up the shot.
    “Would it be too hokey to set a candlestick next to the Bible box and maybe lay a pair of those tiny Ben Franklin spectacles on the table? I think there’s a pair in the back parlor. We could go together to look for them,” she couldn’t resist adding.
    “So we could, like Jack and Jill. I’m rather up on nursery rhymes. One of my young lady students did a paper on Mother Goose. Your idea sounds delightful. What we need is a pewter candlestick. Is there one about, do you know?”
    There wasn’t, only fancy Victorian wrought-iron affairs that Geoffrey said wouldn’t do at all. They settled for a squat green glass inkwell with a somewhat moth-eaten turkey quill stuck into the neck. The feather’s vertical arc would break up the austere squareness of the box.
    Holly fussed with her props, taking out the huge leather-bound Bible and opening it to the pages where births and deaths had been recorded down through the generations. The inkstand could suggest somebody was about to add a new leaf to the family tree.
    But there’d never be any more babies at Cliff House. Soon Earl Stoodley would be happily scrawling “Died” after Mrs. Parlett’s name, and that would be that. She wished she’d picked a different subject.
    Geoffrey must have wished so, too. He was polite about her arrangement but wasted little film on the shot. After a couple of exposures, he asked, “What next?”
    Holly couldn’t help feeling dashed. “Aren’t you going to take any with the lid open?”
    “I don’t see why. There’s nothing interesting about the inside.”
    But there was. As Holly raised the lid to put the Bible back in, she noticed a little stain on the wood, shaped exactly like a swimming duck. She slammed down the lid, praying Geoffrey wouldn’t notice her hands were shaking. Now she knew why the box was in such a remarkable state of preservation. That stain was her own blood.
    It had happened the first time Fan had dragged her along on a lumber raid. In wrenching a board loose, Holly had slashed her finger painfully. She’d got no sympathy.
    “Don’t bleed on the wood,” Fan had screamed. “The stain will never come out.”
    The warning had come too late. A drop had already fallen on the dried-out board. Holly remembered how she’d stood appalled, watching the blood spread into that oddly whimsical shape while Fan railed at her.
    “Now see what you’ve done! Roger will have a fit.”
    He’d been none too happy, at any rate. The board was perfect for his need but barely adequate even if he used every inch. There was no way he could cut around the blemish. She could still see him turning the board this way and that, peering to make sure the stain hadn’t seeped through to the right side while she’d stood wailing,