50 50THE REQUIEM FOR GRETA SHIPLEY AT TRINITY CHURCH was well-attended. As she sat and listened to the familiar prayers, Maggie realized that all the people who had been invited to Nuala’s dinner party were in attendance.
Dr. Lane and his wife, Odile, sat with a number of the guests from the residence, including everyone who had been at Mrs. Shipley’s table on Wednesday evening, with the exception of Mrs. Bainbridge.
Malcolm Norton and his wife, Janice, were there. He had a hangdog look, Maggie thought. When he passed her on the way in, he stopped to say he had been trying to reach her and would like to meet with her after the funeral.
Earl Bateman had come over to speak to her before the service began. “After all this, when you think about Newport, I’m very much afraid that your memories of the place will be of funerals and cemeteries,” he said, his eyes owlish behind lightly tinted round-frame sunglasses.
He hadn’t waited for an answer but had walked past her to take an empty place in the first pew.
Liam arrived halfway through the service and sat down next to her. “Sorry,” he murmured in her ear. “Damn alarm didn’t go off.” He took her hand, but after an instant she withdrew it. She knew that she was the object of many sidelong glances and did not want to have rumors swirling about her and Liam. But, she admitted to herself, her sense of isolation was relieved when his firm shoulder brushed against hers.
When she had filed past the casket at the funeral home, Maggie had studied for an instant the tranquil, lovely face of the woman she had known so briefly yet liked so much. The thought had crossed her mind that Greta Shipley and Nuala and all their other good friends were probably having a joyous reunion.
That thought had brought with it the nagging question of the Victorian bells.
When she passed the three people who had been introduced as Mrs. Shipley’s cousins, their faces were fixed in appropriately serious expressions, but she detected there none of the honest, raw pain that she saw in the eyes and countenances of Mrs. Shipley’s close friends from Latham Manor.
I’ve got to find out when and how each of those women whose graves I visited died, and how many of them had close relatives, Maggie thought, information that she had recognized as pertinent during her visit to Mrs. Bainbridge.
For the next two hours, she felt as if she were operating on some kind of remote control—observing, recording, but not feeling. “I am a camera” was her own reaction to herself as, Liam at her side, she walked away from Greta Shipley’s grave after the interment.
She felt a hand on her arm. A handsome woman with silver hair and remarkably straight carriage stopped her. “Ms. Holloway,” she said, “I’m Sarah Bainbridge Cushing. I want to thank you for visiting Mother yesterday. She so appreciated it.”
Sarah. This was the daughter who had tangled with Earl about his lecture on Victorian bells, Maggie reflected. She wanted to have a chance to talk privately to her.
In the next breath, Sarah Cushing provided the opportunity: “I don’t know how long you’re staying in Newport, but tomorrow morning I’m taking Mother out for brunch, and I’d be delighted if you could join us.”
Maggie agreed readily.
“You’re staying at Nuala’s house, aren’t you? I’ll pick you up at eleven o’clock, if that’s all right.” With a nod, Sarah Cushing turned and dropped back to rejoin the group she had been with.
“Let’s have a quiet lunch,” Liam suggested. “I’m sure you’re not up to any more post-funeral get-togethers.”
“No, I’m not. But I really do want to get back to the house. I simply have to go through Nuala’s clothes and sort them out.”
“Dinner tonight, then?”
Maggie shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m going to stay at the sort-and-pack job till I drop.”
“Well, I have to see you before I go back to Boston tomorrow night,” Liam protested.
Maggie knew he wasn’t going to allow her to say no. “Okay, call me,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”
He left her at her car. She was turning the key in the ignition when a rap at the window startled her. It was Malcolm Norton. “We need to talk,” he said urgently.
Maggie decided to bite the bullet and not waste his time or hers. “Mr. Norton, if it’s about buying Nuala’s house, I can only tell you this: I have absolutely no plans of selling it at this time, and I’m afraid that, absolutely unsolicited, I have already received a substantially higher offer than yours.”
Murmuring, “I’m sorry,” she slid the selector into DRIVE. She found it almost painful to see the horrified shock in the man’s expression.