Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal

"May I tell you a secret?" she asked with a conspiratorial smile. "You have honest eyes, and I know you won't tell on me. Promise you won't tell Victoria?"

"I promise," he said with the sincerity that had won confidences throughout his career in journalism.

"Well!" she began with great relish. "When everyone leaves the house, I go downstairs in my elevator - I call it my magic time capsule - and I walk from room to room, reliving my life! I sit at the head of the dining table where I used to pour tea for the Bird Club, and I imagine it laid with Madeira linen and flowers in a cut-glass bowl and silver trays of dainties - and all the ladies wearing hats!... Does that sound as if I've lost my senses?"

"Not at all. It sounds charming."

"Then I go into the front parlor and sit at the rosewood piano and play a few chords, and I can almost hear my husband's beautiful tenor voice singing, 'When you come to the end of a perfect day.' I can almost see the sheet music with pink roses on the cover. How happy we were!... I go into other rooms, too, and give the housekeeper her orders for the day and take a basket of cut flowers from the gardener... Sometimes - but not always - I walk into the reception hall and remember reading the telegram about my son in Korea." She turned to gaze out the window. "After that, nothing was quite the same."

"Where are you?" called a voice from the head of the stairs. "Oh, there you are!" Vicki walked toward the alcove with a covered tray.

"Not a word to Victoria," Grummy cautioned Qwilleran in a whisper.

"Grummy dear, it's time for us to leave for the 'chase, and I'm putting your lunch in the refrigerator. Just warm up the soup, and there's a muffin and a nice little cup custard."

"Thank you, Victoria," said the old lady. "Have a lovely time. I'll be with you in memory."

Vicki gave her grandmother a hug. "We'll see you after the fifth race."

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Inglehart," said Qwilleran, bowing over her trembling hand and returning her confidential wink.

"Please leave the little ones with me," she said: "I'll enjoy their company."

Vicki said to Qwilleran as they walked downstairs, "She refuses to have a sitter when we go out, but she has a hot line to the hospital. In case of emergency, she only has to press the red button."

Bushy had removed the photographic gear from the van, and they packed it with food baskets and coolers, folding chairs, and snack tables. Vicki, wearing a flamboyant creation from the Tacky Tack Shop, said, "How do you like my sweatshirt? Fiona gave it to me for my birthday."

When they picked up Fiona at her apartment over a drug store, she too was wearing a shirt stenciled in the rah-rah spirit of the steeplechase - quite unlike her drab attire of the night before. En route, she sat quietly, biting her thumbnail.

"I suppose you've attended many of these events," Qwilleran remarked.

"Ummm... yes... but I'm kind of nervous. It's Robbie's first race."

The stream of traffic heading for the race course included cars and vans packed to the roof with passengers, the younger ones boisterous with anticipation. South of town the route lay through hunting country, finally turning into a gravel road where race officials in Hunt Club blazers checked tickets and sold souvenir programs of the seventy-fifth annual Lockmaster Steeplechase Race Meeting. After one more hill and a small bridge and a clump of woods, the steeplechase course burst into view - a vast, grassy bowl, a natural stadium, its slopes overlooking the race course, which was defined by portable fencing.

Bushy backed into the parking slot designated G-12, with the tail of the van down-slope. Chairs and snack tables were set up on the downside, and he went about mixing drinks. "Bloody Mary okay for everybody?" he asked.

"You know how I want mine," Qwilleran said.

"Right. Extra hot, two stalks of celery, and no vodka."

Already the hillsides were dotted with hundreds of vehicles and swarming with thousands of fans. Race officials in pink riding coats, mounted on thoroughbreds, patrolled the grassy course, controlling the crowd that crossed over to the refreshment tents in the infield. Near G- 12, there was a judges' tower overlooking the finish line. Across the field a stand of evergreens concealed the backstretch. Three ambulances and a veterinary wagon were lined up in conspicuous readiness.

An amplified voice from the judges' tower announced the Trial of Hounds, and soon the baying and trumpeting of the pack could be heard as they came down the slope from the backstretch.

Bushy said, "That sound is music if you're a fox hunter."

Or blood curdling, Qwilleran thought, if you're a fox. Then the MacDiarmid camper pulled into G-ll. The door opened, and a stream of young people poured out. Qwilleran counted three, six, eight, eleven - emerging with exuberance and rushing off to the refreshment tents. Kip and Moira and four other adults stepped out of the camper in their wake.

Qwilleran asked the editor, "How many of these kids are yours?"

"Only four, thank God. Did we miss the hounds? We got lost. They sent us to the wrong gate." He introduced his guests, all connected with the newspaper, and the women busied themselves with the food. Joining with the Bushlands they set up a tailgate spread of ham, potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, olives, dill pickles, pumpkin tarts, and chocolate cake. Again the voice from the tower reverberated around the hillsides, announcing the parade of carriages, and a dozen turn-outs came around the bend: plain and fancy carriages drawn by high- steppers, the drivers and passengers in period costumes.

There was still a half hour before post time. The high school band was blasting away, with drums and trumpets almost drowned out by the hubbub of the race crowd, all of whom were wildly excited. They were circulating, greeting friends, showing off their festive garb, sharing food and drink, shouting, laughing, screaming. Qwilleran observed them in amazement; they were getting a high-voltage charge from the occasion that totally escaped him.

"Would you like to stroll around?" he asked Fiona, who had been quiet and introspective.

She responded eagerly, and as they circled the rim of the bowl she ventured to say, "It's quite a sight!" Long folding tables were laid with fringed cloths, floral centerpieces, champagne buckets, and whole turkeys on silver platters.

"I'm sorry I didn't meet you during the run of the play," he said, "but you always disappeared right after the curtain."

"I had a long drive home," she explained, "and then... ummm... I have to keep an eye on Robbie." "Altogether, with rehearsals and performances, you had to do a lot of driving. I hope VanBrook appreciated that."

"Oh, yes," she said. "He sent me money out of his own pocket to pay for my gas."

Qwilleran huffed silently into his moustache. "Very thoughtful of him. How did you two meet? In the theatre?"

"Oh, no! I was.... uh... working in a restaurant... and this man used to come in to eat all the time. He was... well, not very good-looking, and the other waitresses made fun of him. I liked him, though. He was, you know, different. Then one day he asked me - right out of nowhere - if I'd like a job. He needed a live-in housekeeper. Robbie was eight then, and we both went to live with him. It was, well, like a gift from heaven!" As Fiona talked, the wonder of it overcame her shyness.

"Was he hard to get along with?" Qwilleran asked. "People in Pickax found him rather crotchety."

"Well, he was strange in some ways, but I got used to it. He kept saying I should educate myself, and he gave me books to read. They weren't... uh... very interesting."

"How did you get involved in Henry VIII?"

"Well, he was going to do the play - here in Lockmaster, you know - and he said he wanted me to be in it. I almost fell over! I'd never been in a play. He said he'd coach me. I was good at memorizing, and I just did everything the way he told me to."