Jill Churchill: A Farewell to Yarns

“No, we can manage. Just point me in the right direction," Jane said over the top of the Santa pillow carton.

“Just down the hall, then. I'll have the maid help me unpack them later."

“We'll come back and do that," Shelley said, staggering under the weight of a box of iced gingerbread men. "You're not supposed to go to any trouble, since you're letting us use your house for the sale."

“I don't mind in the least. But can't you stay?”

Jane had set her carton down and come back. "Not this morning. I have an old neighbor coming to town to stay a few days." Even saying it made her shudder. "I left her at home un‑ packing. If it's okay, we'll come back tomorrow and help you sort things out."

“Can't you even have a cup of tea?" Fiona asked.

“That nice jasmine kind?" Jane asked. "If you like.”

Jane shot a questioning look at Shelley, who glanced at her watch and said, "Only for five minutes. I have to be at school pretty soon and to help the nurse weigh the third graders. Some sort of health unit.”

Fiona led them through the house, and Jane dawdled as much as she could, looking around. She knew Fiona only slightly from church, and she'd never been within the hedged walls, much less inside the house before. She'd expected it to be palatial. Actually, it was quite ordinary, but in a very expensive, tasteful way. The only Englishness about it was the formal living room, which was done with a busy patterned carpet that was probably eighty dollars a yard minimum, imported. The room was furnished in elegant, dark furniture that was certainly antique. The rest of the rooms they passed were just what any well-to-do American family might have. Jane was sorry there wasn't linen-foldpaneling and ancestral portraits hung from picture molding.

Fiona led them to a small, sunny breakfast room that overlooked the backyard and spacious garden, dormant now but obviously well tended. Fiona and Shelley fell into a discussion of the proper packaging and pricing of some hard candies that would be for sale at the church bazaar, and Jane studied Fiona. She, unlike her home, was satisfyingly English. Her hair was a burnished copper and the tiniest bit curly. It might even fuzz on a humid day. Her skin was as fair as milk and her eyes almost neon blue. She must have been a striking girl and was still attractive, but she had a bit of middle-age hippiness starting, and there were a few gray hairs in with the red. The large white teeth that must have made a ravishing smile in youth were the tiniest bit horsy at thirty-five. She looked like Fergie, the Duchess of York, would probably look like in a few years.

“You don't know anyone looking for a house, do you?" Fiona asked, as she poured three cups of fragrant tea.

“You're not selling, are you?" Shelley asked.

“Heavens, no! We wouldn't dream of leaving. It's the house next door to the north. The lady who lived there has gone into a nursing home, and her son is trying to sell the house. He explained to Albert about some tax thing or another that makes it imperative to sell it before the end of the year. I think he might price it quite reasonably. It's only two bedrooms, I believe, but for a single person or young couple it would be ideal."

“Single? Do we know anybody single, Jane?" Shelley asked with a smile. "I hardly remember the state."

“The only single people I know are divorced with mobs of kids. Like myself."

“I didn't know you were divorced, Jane," Fiona said, passing her an elegant china sugar bowl.

“I put that badly. I'm not. I meant I'm a single parent with mobs of kids. I'm a widow."

“Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. How tactless of me," Fiona said, a genuine blush of embarrassment brightening her cheeks.

Jane almost smiled. How odd that Fiona, a rather famous widow herself, should apologize to Jane. "Please, don't be sorry. It's been nearly a year now, and I'm quite accustomed to it—" Jane stopped. "Listen to me! I'm already picking up your accent. That's a terrible habit. I don't mean to do it."

“Jane grew up all over the world, and she tends to talk like whoever she's talking to," Shelley explained. "Even if it's just a speech impediment, she mimics it."

“I never!"

“You certainly do. Remember that woman in the grocery store last week who couldn't say her 'r's? She asked you where the sausages were, and you said, 'Wight down the thiwd isle.' "

“I didn't.”

Fiona smiled and said, "Still, if you hear of anyone needing a small house, give me a call. We're uneasy about it standing empty. One hates to have an invitation to vandalism so close, you know.”

Shelley asked. "Doesn't that Finch man live on the other side of it?”

Fiona looked as if she'd been caught in something. "Yes, he does. But I really believe he's harmless!"

“Harmless! I wouldn't call anybody who poisons dogs harmless," Shelley said.

“There's no proof it was Mr. Finch," Fiona said. Her voice lacked conviction. "We've never had any trouble with him.”

Jane had been so interested in listening to Fiona's accent that she'd hardly started on her tea when Shelley started bustling her along. "Fiona, we'll be back tomorrow to help with setting up. Please don't go to any trouble on your own."

“Please feel free to bring your houseguest along if she's interested in helping out," Fiona said to Jane. There was something vaguely poignant in her voice. Loneliness? No, that couldn't be, Jane thought. You can't be rich and famous and lonely.

As they reached the front entry, a man stepped into the area from another door. "Oh, Fiona, I didn't know you had guests."

“Albert, this is Shelley Nowack and Jane Jeffry. They're on the placement committee for the church bazaar."

“How nice to meet you, ladies," Albert Howard said. He was American—a plumpish man with thinning dull brown hair and oversized tortoiseshell bifocals that made his receding chin appear almost nonexistent. Fiona had taken his arm in an oddly protective gesture and was gazing at him as if he'd just spoken words of enormous import.

“We've met before, I think," Jane said. "I substituted for Mary Ebert in the church choir one morning. You were there.”

Albert stared at her for a minute, recognition dawning, then started to laugh. 'Oh, yes! The director ended up asking you if you'd just hum."

“I didn't expect you to remember the occasion in detail!" Jane said. "My enthusiasm for music slightly exceeds my talents."

“Jane—?" Shelley said with a meaningful glance at her watch.

"Odd, aren't they?" Shelley said as they pulled out of the driveway moment alter.

“You're a mind reader," Jane said, smiling. "I had no idea he was Albert Howard. I see him in the church choir, but I never connected him with Fiona. How could she have married him?"

“He's a very nice man, I hear from people who know him. Very soft-spoken and witty."

“Yes, but married to Richie Divine's widow? I mean—Richie Divine was so—"

“Sexy?" Shelley asked.

“Slim, young, blond, talented, gorgeous, famous, rich. I was going to say. But I guess sexy sums it up. Was he really, Shelley, or were our hormones just at fever pitch when we were young and he was alive?"

“There's evidence against it," Shelley said, craning her neck around to peer at traffic behind her. She changed lanes in such a way as to nearly cause a beer truck to run onto the shoulder.

“What evidence?""Well, there's the fact that my mother and her friends thought he was wonderful, and none of them were much given to admiring young men. Mostly their impulse was to bat them around the ears for impertinence. Then, too, there's that old movie he was in—I saw it on the late show a month or so ago and found my tongue hanging out."

“Can you imagine slobbering over Albert Howard after having been married to Richie Divine?"