beside the open grave. Nearby, the preacher eyed the lowering clouds as he waited patiently for Rose Magruder to pay her last respects to her grandmother’s mortal remains. He took out his pocket watch, glanced down quickly, then looked up at the sky again, and at the grave diggers waiting to finish their work.
Some distance away, a handful of servants huddled uncertainly, hoping the rain would hold off for another few minutes. Hoping Miss Rose would land on her feet, because the poor girl deserved better than she’d had these past few years.
Hoping even more that Mrs. Littlefield had left them the back wages she’d died owing.
On the other side of the plot, under the shelter of a massive magnolia, an elderly couple lingered, their heads close together as they carried on a low-voiced conversation. Bess Powers had been Augusta Little-field’s friend for more than forty years. Horace Bagby had been her lawyer for at least that long.
“Gussy would’ve told us all to get inside before we catch our deaths,” murmured the plump woman with the suspiciously red hair. “Poor Gussy, she was a tartar, but I loved her like a sister.”
“Gussy was always proud of what you’ve accomplished, you know. Used to read me every one of your letters while you were off on one of your travels.” The two longtime friends were among the few who had been allowed to call the late Mrs. Littlefield “Gussy.”
“Well, I’m home for a few weeks, at any rate. Horace, what are we going to do about that poor child?” She nodded toward the deceased’s only relative. “I suppose I could invite her to move in with me as a sort of secretary-companion, but you know how small my cottage is.”
Horace removed his derby, smoothed the few strands of hair laid carefully across his dome, and carefully replaced his hat. They both studied the lone figure dressed in black. Tall as a beanpole, Bess was thinking.
Slender as a willow, Horace mused, a romantic in spite of his elderly bachelor status. “Bess, I just don’t know. Right now all I can think of is how I’m going to break the news to her. I’d rather take a licking, and that’s a fact.”
“Poor child, you’d think she’d have earned a little peace after all she’s had to put up with. Never had a beau in her life, far as anybody knows. Gussy said she married the first jack out of the box after her folks died. Nobody had ever heard of the fellow. Then, less than two years later, the fellow up and died on her.
“Drowned, I believe Gussy said.” They stood in silent sympathy for the tall, plain woman who lingered beside the grave.
The handful of acquaintances who had braved the weather to attend the funeral had already left, eager to exchange this dismal place for a warm, food-laden parlor where they could enjoy a good meal while they speculated on how much the old girl had left her only granddaughter.
Not until the preacher finally led the chief mourner away did Horace tuck Bess’s hand under his arm and steer her toward the one remaining carriage. “Waiting hand and foot on Gussy couldn’t have been any picnic, either,” Bess remarked as she picked her way carefully around the puddles. “By the time Rose came to live with her, Gussy’s mind was already addled. Never was much to brag about, poor soul.”
Horace nodded. “Came on her so gradually, I kept telling myself she was just having another bad spell, but you’re right. She never was what you might call quick-witted. I tried to warn her about those funds, but by the time I found out what she was up to, it was already too late.” He sighed heavily. “And now there’s that poor girl yonder….”
“I know. I didn’t want to believe it, either.”
They followed the lead carriage, bearing the preacher and Augusta Rose Littlefield Magruder, granddaughter and sole heir to the late Augusta Littlefield, back to the Littlefield mansion.
Bess patted Horace’s black-gloved hand. “Never mind, we’ll think of something.”
The house was overheated. It smelled of wet wool. There’d be an enormous coal bill to pay once Rose had time to tackle her grandmother’s messy desk. Right to the end Gussy had insisted on keeping her own accounts. She’d allowed no one in what she called her office, a converted sitting room off the master bedroom that was kept locked, with the key hidden in one of Gussy’s bedroom slippers.
Rose had known where it was, of course, but neither she nor any of the few remaining servants would have dreamed of using it. A calm and contented Gussy had been difficult enough to deal with; an angry Gussy utterly impossible.
Now Rose sat numbly, half hidden behind a Chinese screen, waiting for this endless day to end. She would have given anything she possessed, which wasn’t all that much, to be able to close her eyes and sleep for a solid week.
Unfortunately, even if she’d had the chance, her mind would have refused to cooperate. She had grown up in a house nearly as grand as this one, but the thought of being solely responsible for her grand-mother’s entire estate was overwhelming.
Gradually, she became aware of a whispered conversation on the other side of the screen. She honestly didn’t mean to listen, but without revealing her presence it was impossible not to hear.
“…finally gone, I guess her granddaughter’s set for life, the lucky woman.”
“Lucky? If you ask me, the poor thing’s earned every dollar the old biddy hoarded all these years. Didn’t pay her servants worth diddly. Her upstairs maid came to work for me last fall, and she said—”
“Yes, but they say the granddaughter’s had a hard row to hoe. I heard her folks were killed in that awful train wreck near Suffolk, and a few years later her husband was murdered.”
“He wasn’t murdered, silly, he drowned. The way I heard it, he—”
“Black don’t become her at all, does it? If I was her, I’d use a touch of rouge.”
“For shame, Ida Lee, she’s a decent woman, for all she’s plain as a fence post.”
“The poor thing, they say she’s still grieving for her husband, too.”
What was that old saying about eavesdroppers? Rose wondered, amused in spite of herself. Black did indeed make her look sallow, but then so did everything else. Some kind soul had once called her un-fashionable complexion “olive,” and she’d latched onto it because it sounded better than sallow—even faintly exotic—but fancy words couldn’t change the truth.
And she was grieving. She would grieve for the rest of her life, but not for the lout she had married.
Rose Magruder had never been one to display her emotions. She had come to her grandmother a penniless widow. Since then she had been far too busy trying to keep up with the constant, confusing and often conflicting demands of her only remaining relative to do more than fall into bed each night, exhausted.
Of the staff required to maintain an eighteen-room mansion and the acres surrounding it, only three had stayed on until the end.
Rose fully intended to see that those three were amply rewarded for their faithfulness.
But first she had to find time to go through the mountain of papers her grandmother had left crammed into shoeboxes, hatboxes and goodness knows where else. She knew for a fact that the household accounts were in arrears, because several of the merchants with whom they did business had brought it
