Fairmont moved closer to Bea and held out his hand. “Call me Robert,” he offered.
Bea looked at his hand as if it contained poison. “Yes,” she said tartly. “I know who you are.”
Robert let his hand fall slowly back to his side.
An awkward moment passed before Bea turned her attention to Elise. “Elise, I want you to take that darned telephone off the hook! It’s rung every few minutes all afternoon. I can’t rest, I can’t think. If it rings again, it’s going to drive me mad!”
To emphasize her point, the telephone rang that very moment. Bea groaned while Elise dashed to answer it. Only a part of Elise’s attention was devoted to the caller, however, as she continued to listen to the conversation that took place between her sister and Robert Fairmont.
“Elise gave everyone a fright today,” she heard him say. “People are concerned about her.”
“I don’t see why,” Bea replied grumpily. “She’s as strong as an ox.”
“It seems she’s been under a lot of strain recently.”
Bea cocked her head to one side. “Are you trying to tell me you know my sister better than I do? You may be a fine-and-fancy architect in the town you come from, but I guarantee that you don’t know a thing about...”
Elise hurriedly broke off with the caller, saying, “I’m perfectly fine, really. In fact, I’m going back to the library this afternoon. Listen, Annabelle, I really do have to go. Do you mind if I...?” She murmured a couple of polite yeses and hung up. Then she moved quickly back across the room. “That was Annabelle,” she said to Bea, hoping to break the tension that existed between her sister and Robert Fairmont. She knew all the signals for when Bea didn’t like someone, and those flags were flying at full mast. “Our postmistress,” she explained to Robert. “She just wanted to see how I was.” The words she had been unable to find earlier now rushed out of her in a whirl. “She heard it from someone who came into the post office. They’d heard it from someone who heard it from someone else who had been in the library. It’s truly amazing. I think I’ve had a call from almost everyone in town!”
Robert’s gaze traveled from Bea to her. Elise couldn’t tell what he thought. Then a smile slowly lightened his features. “You’re a very lucky woman,” he said, “to have so many people care about you.”
Elise surrendered to the charm of his smile, but Bea seemed totally immune. She harrumphed crossly, “They’re all a bunch of silly people who don’t have anything better to do with their time.”
Elise was embarrassed by Bea’s hateful demeanor. The inhabitants of Tyler knew her; they were accustomed to her sharp tongue. But Robert Fairmont was a guest in their town, in their home. He wouldn’t understand. “Maybe we should go back to the library,” she suggested. “I truly would like to show everyone that I’m—”
“It was my understanding that you were home for the day!” Bea snapped, interrupting her.
“No, Bea,” Elise explained. “I told you I was going back.”
“Because of him?” Bea glanced spitefully at the professor.
“No, because I have to. I have work to do, Bea. You know that.”
“But you almost fainted. What if you do it again?”
Elise knew that Bea wasn’t voicing concern for her wellbeing. In her own way her sister loved her, but it wasn’t in Bea to think of another person first. Particularly not Elise.
“Then I’ll sit down and wait for it to be over!” Elise returned shortly. She took a bracing breath. “I’ll be home no later than six-thirty. I promise.”
She reached for her purse, glad of her forethought in setting it near the door. Then she turned to Robert. “Are you ready?” she asked with brittle control.
Robert nodded, but before moving away, he addressed Bea. “It was nice to meet you. Maybe next time it will be under better circumstances.” He was making an excuse for her ill humor.
Bea snapped. “I don’t see any reason why there should be a next time.”
Pain filled Elise’s heart as she wondered what Bea’s life, not to mention her own, would have been like if Bea hadn’t fallen on the icy steps. Blindly, she walked toward the door. Robert was just behind her and, sensing her need, he reached out to lightly touch her back, guiding her toward the exit.
Gratitude instantly took the place of pain, and not even Bea’s acerbic reminder, “Six-thirty, Elise!” could steal away the warmth that temporarily surrounded her being.
* * *
BEA SAT ALONE in the house, grumbling to herself. She was always alone, or so it seemed. She should be used to it. But it didn’t make the hours pass any faster. In Elise’s opinion, as long as she had her television and her books, her magazines and her dolls, she would be all right. Then Elise could go out into the world with a free conscience and not have to think about her. Leave her all alone except for the marmalade cat...who at present wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Buttercup!” Bea called, snapping her fingers near the floor. “Come to Bea, Buttercup!” she called again, but it did no good. The silly cat was sleeping somewhere, probably somewhere that she shouldn’t.
Bea straightened, drawing her hand back into her lap. She sighed and looked at the closed front door. Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that man. Not one little bit. She knew danger when she saw it, and he was definitely danger! Elise practically quivered every time he looked at her. She might not be completely aware of it herself, but Bea was.
Her mind went back to another man, years before, who had come calling on Elise. Elise had been twenty...no, nineteen. How many years ago was that? Thirty-four. My God, Bea thought dully. That meant she’d been in this chair for... Bea let her chin drop. Forty-two years!
A moment later she lifted her hands to examine them. The fingers were still long and narrow, tapering to delicate oval nails at the tips. But the skin had lost a great deal of its elasticity and age spots had begun to appear.
Her lips tightened. She was growing old. And what did she have to show for it? Nothing.
With a strength of purpose that would have surprised Elise had she been there, Bea pushed her chair over to the hall mirror, where she arranged herself in the best possible light. What she saw reflected was a drab-looking woman shrunk into an invalid’s chair. Dried-up; prune-faced. She tried to smile, but the muscles protested and her effort came off as more of a leer. She moved impatiently away.
No, she didn’t like that man, that fancy architecture professor. She didn’t like the way he looked at her, or the way he looked at Elise...which were two entirely different matters. Bea would have to be vigilant if she didn’t want to be left alone. Would have to watch Elise for any threatening signs.
Buttercup sidled up to the chair and, purring, rubbed her yellow side along the rubber rim of the right wheel.
“Ah! So there you are!” Bea exclaimed. She reached down to scoop the cat onto her lap. Buttercup responded by arching her back. “Yes,” Bea said a few moments later, still absently stroking a silky neck. “I must be extremely watchful.”
*
