Barbara Michaels - Shattered Silk

Karen offered a glass tinkling with ice cubes. Julie took it; then her eyes narrowed and she studied Karen as if seeing her for the first time.

"Well, well. I didn't know vintage chic had reached the far-off Midwest."

Karen smoothed the skirt of her dress selfconsciously. It was yellow batiste faded to a soft cream and sprinkled with orange flowers. The deep ruffle framing the neck was echoed by short ruffled sleeves.

"I found it in the attic. It must have belonged to Cousin Hattie. She was a stout woman, though much shorter than I am."

"I thought I detected an aura of eau de mothballs." Julie's eyes moved down the loose, unbelted folds of the dress to the hemline, which reached just below Karen's knees. "They wore dresses long in the early thirties. In the attic, did you say?"

Karen sat down with her own drink, plain tonic and ice. She had never been much of a drinker, and wasn't about to start now.

"Don't be subtle, Julie, you aren't good at it. I know you've been dying to get into Ruth's attic."

"I'd kill for the chance," Julie said coolly. "Acquiring stock is one of the biggest problems in the antique business these days. The good stuff has been bought up, and there aren't any bargains; every little old lady in the backwoods knows her junk is worth money."

"You've told me that a dozen times." Karen sipped her drink. "That's really why you hired me, isn't it? You had your eye on Ruth's attic."

"Hers and a few others."

"Such as Mrs. MacDougal's?"

" She's sort of an adopted grandmother, isn't she?"

"There is no relationship. She's Pat's mother, and he is only my uncle by marriage-"

"But he hasn't any children. I'm sure he thinks of you and your sister as his own."

Julie tried to look sentimental, without success. Her green eyes were as hard and calculating as a huckster's. Karen did not reply; without appearing to notice her distaste, Julie went on, "The old lady is a legend in this town. Her family was old Georgetown, creme de la creme, and she married big money. It was considered something of a mesalliance back then; Jackson MacDougal was one of those robber-baron types, a self-made millionaire with no culture and no class. I suppose his millions made up for his lack of table manners."

"Mrs. MacDougal wouldn't marry for money," Karen said stiffly. "She loved her husband very much."

"I'd have loved him too. Passionately. She was the most influential hostess in Washington for over forty years. And she knew how to spend old Jackson's money. That house is like a museum! I was in it once, on a charity tour. How old is she, a hundred?"

"In her nineties. Julie, you are not only a gossip, you are a ghoul. Do you sit around and pray for people to die so you can buy their antiques?"

"Well, sweetie, they can't take it with them, can they? I've heard rumors that she is going to sell the house and move to a nursing home, and dispose of most of her things. The important antiques will go to Christie's or Sotheby's, of course. I haven't the capital to deal with a collection like that, even if I had the entree. But her odds and ends would make my fortune! In her day she was one of the snappiest dressers in town. I'll bet she's got designer gowns, hats, accessories-"

"I thought you didn't deal in vintage clothes." Karen added waspishly, "We aren't that out of it in the dreary Midwest. I know old clothes are fashionable-collectible is the word, I believe. Not that I would wear things like that-"

"That's exactly what you are wearing," Julie pointed out. "It looks fairly decent on you. And it's comfortable, isn't it?"

"Yes, but-"

"But nothing. I don't specialize in vintage, but I'd market shit if people would buy it." She leaned across the table and fingered the ruffle. "This is in super condition. I could get… oh, say, seventy-five for it."

"Seventy-five dollars?"

"What do you think, yen? Maybe more. It's a good size, too. A lot of older clothes were made for those Scarlett O'Hara twenty-inch waists. How much more of this sort of thing does your aunt have?"

"Boxes and boxes and bags and bags."

Julie sprang to her feet, her eyes gleaming with avarice. "Show, show."

"I will, just to frustrate you. Ruth isn't going to sell her things."

"You could ask her."

Karen tried to change the subject. "Why don't we sit in the parlor like ladies? I'll fix you another drink-"

"I hate that room," Julie said.

"Why?" Karen asked curiously.

"It's too damned formal. I can't put my feet on the coffee table."

"Oh. Well, you certainly can't. I swore to return Ruth's property in pristine condition, as I received it."

"Don't worry, I've too much respect for antiques to treat them carelessly. Which is why I prefer to sit in the kitchen." Julie gulped down her drink. "Let's go to the attic."

It was not long before Karen was regretting her careless offer. Her hope, that friendship had been at least part of Julie's motive for cultivating her acquaintance, looked more and more forlorn when she saw the look of pure acquisitiveness on Julie's face.

One end of the long room was filled with furniture, much of it Pat's. He had had his own house before he moved in with Ruth after their marriage, and-Karen now realized-much of his furniture had originally belonged to his mother. She had literally to drag Julie away from a set of dining room chairs with needlepoint seats.

The linens, clothing, and rugs had been arranged along one wall, separated from the bulkier objects. Some of the clothing was packed in trunks and cartons; others hung from rods laid across the exposed beams. The latter were enclosed in garment bags, and a strong smell of mothballs wafted out as Julie began opening them.

"Let's take them downstairs," she said breathlessly. "It's too dark up here to see properly."

"Julie, I told you-"

"You said I could look. You know, linens and clothing ought to be aired and cleaned from time to time. You'd be doing your aunt a favor, really. If she ever does decide to sell them-"

"She'll never sell them. She doesn't need the money."

"But you do. I knew your dear husband when he was teaching at Georgetown; unless he's changed a lot, you'll have to fight him for every penny."

Karen's expression warned Julie that this time she had gone too far. "At least you can wear some of them, can't you? Surely Ruth wouldn't object to that."

"Of course not. She's the most generous-"

"Then let's take them downstairs and see what we- I mean, you-have. We'll play dress-up. Come on, it'll be fun."

Fun was not the word Karen would have chosen; Julie's open, unconcealed greediness cast a pall over the whole business. But she found the clothing unexpectedly fascinating. Thanks to Ruth's housewifely instincts and Cousin Hattie's lavish use of camphor, the dresses and coats were in excellent condition. Karen had done enough sewing to appreciate fine tailoring and beautiful fabrics, and only a woman totally devoid of imagination could fail to appreciate the charm of the ultra-feminine flowing frocks that dated back to Hattie's distant girlhood.

Karen wondered if fond nostalgia for a lost figure had inspired Hattie to preserve some of the dresses. Certainly they had been made for a willowy-slim woman which, to judge from the wardrobe of her middle age, Hattie had no longer been. Her favorites, packed in oiled paper and the inevitable camphor, ranged from a black-and-white calico day dress, every stitch sewn by hand, to a white batiste creation dripping with lace and eyelet insertion. Perhaps, Karen thought, they commemorated events in Hattie's life, happy times or sentimental moments. Parties and picnics, strolls by the river with a mustachioed gallant who looked into her eyes and told her how pretty she looked in white lace and ruffles…