The Necklace Page 9

  “I know you have,” he says, and this feels like an invitation. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “I think it’s time you told me,” Nell says with the mounting energy of someone about to be let in on a long-guarded secret.

  He sighs as he walks into the little bathroom and throws the butt of his smoke into the toilet with a sizzle.

  “I mean, don’t you think I should have some answers?” she asks above the flush. “About why Mom hated them all so much?”

  He turns on the taps and washes his hands. “Or why you do, now that we’re talking about it.”

  He comes back in and throws himself down on a low loveseat, slumped like a teenager so his head hangs on the back.

  “Well?”

  “Well nothing. She didn’t hate them. I don’t either, for that matter,” he says.

  “No?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I did.” Nell decides the only way to do this is to wait him out. “She was so untethered, your mother. And they’re so . . .” He waves a hand.

  “Hearty and rah-rah,” she says, reciting the phrase she heard her mother use many times to describe her family of origin.

  “She was out of step,” he says, looking at the ceiling. “And they really don’t make space for that, let alone for someone as delicate as your mother. It wasn’t a nurturing sort of place. Loulou was never one to really see other people for who they actually are.”

  “That doesn’t seem like enough reason to barely talk to your family.”

  “If we’re going to do this, you’re really going to have to listen,” he says.

  Nell controls her rising ire at being scolded and wills herself to be still, to listen, even if her father is being sharp.

  “Loulou had her problems with your mother—this foundling waif who was put on her. Her niece, yes, but the product of so much loss.”

  “Israel had died.” Nell nods, hoping to move him along by filling in the gaps of the story she’s already familiar with.

  “Heart attack, yes.” She can hear the music coming from the front hall—Motown now. “And I think she was deeply shocked by it. I mean, I can only assume, but Israel Quincy was very religious, very strict, so I’m not saying he brought it on himself.”

  “But you’re going to.”

  “He was just marinating in shame after that mine fire. It was practically Japanese.”

  “Then Grandmother May dying while Mom was born, I mean that happened back then, right?”

  “Uncontrollable hemorrhaging, yes. In the face of all this it was just too much for Ethan. A father he worshipped, and his wife . . . There was no way he could care for a baby. Loulou was basically raising your mother anyway, when . . .” He falters for a moment here. “It made perfect sense at the time that it became formal. But even though it was all in the family, she felt like an orphan, a charity case, because Ethan left all the money in Loulou’s care.”

  A stone drops in the well of Nell’s mind, making ripples through her thoughts and assumptions.

  “How did Ethan die?” And as she asks the question, Nell realizes this is a piece of the puzzle she’s never had, or even wondered about, until now. Again, the maddening need to ask the right question.

  “Ethan? Why, he drowned in the pond,” her father says calmly, watching her face. “Right here.”

  Nell had assumed he’d been sick, but no.

  “Incredibly sad. It was almost never spoken of because you kids would never want to swim in it again, now would you? Remember how much Old Lou used to like to swim? It was almost an act of defiance for her.”

  Nell does remember Loulou in a light blue rubber bathing cap and a matching modest one-piece, swimming until well into her eighties. Quincys have a history of being strong swimmers.

  “From what I understand he drank quite a bit, so maybe he was drunk at the time. I’ve also heard that he was in pain after his injury. So maybe he took something for it and it was an overdose, for all we know. There was no autopsy or anything. Everyone was too sad. Or maybe he panicked or he had a little stroke. He couldn’t use one of his arms, but people said he swam like that all the time with no problems. It happened at night, which makes me think it must have been somewhat intentional.” For the first time since he’s arrived her father’s face looks less guarded, looks genuinely sad. “They say the next morning when they fished his body out of the pond, every one of the staff cried.” He looks at Nell then. “Of course we couldn’t tell you children any of this.”

  “Well sure, but you never told us even after we grew up.”

  “That is the danger,” her father says, nodding to himself. “First things are known, but not talked about. Then they’re not talked about so for long that they become unknown.”

  “So tell me,” she says. “Tell me what I need to know.”

  He drains the last of his glass, and she can tell he’s contemplating letting her in on something.

  “There was always something with the money. I think Ethan thought Loulou would know best what to do with it,” her father continues. “He never imagined she’d need it for herself after the divorce.”

  Loulou had famously divorced Dicky for his philandering decades ago, when it became so public she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Done at a time when such things were much more scandalous, it was a testament to her social standing that Loulou had managed both to come out on top, and to remain friends with her choice of the Cavanaughs. The split had even provided cover for her to change her name back to the more recognizable Quincy. It was what everyone called her anyway. And while she’d had a bit of money herself, Dicky had never made much, and so they’d been draining her inheritance the entire marriage.

  “So when Ethan signed over your mother’s guardianship, all the money went with it. He never changed his will after May died to make specific provisions for a child, so with her gone, it all landed on Loulou. The expectation, of course, was that Loulou would give it to your mother, and while your mother was well taken care of, you know as well as I do that Old Lou spent most of it as right and didn’t think twice about it.”

  A knock on the door makes Nell jump and brings a strange panic, as if she should get in the closet like when she was young and playing hide-and-seek.

  “Sorry, need to use the bathroom.” Baldwin strides in, and Nell wonders at his sixth sense, wonders if he was listening at the door for secrets about to be revealed.

  “Why don’t you use the other one?” her father says, enjoying kicking Baldwin out of any part of the farm. “We’re in the midst of a chat.”

  “That’s just great,” he says, with a weak smile. “Some father-daughter time. I’m sure you need it.” He shuts the door as he leaves.

  Her father watches, waits until the door latches, and then waits a beat more. She almost expects him to get up and check that Baldwin isn’t crouched on the other side with a glass cupped to his ear. “Your mother thought you should be allowed to have your own view of things. Your own view of the family. Your family. She never wanted to tell you. Didn’t think you should be influenced by her. And the money had messed everything up in her mind. She knew that, and she didn’t want that for you. But then again, she absolutely believed what she believed. And that wasn’t going to fly around here.”

  Nell wills herself to be quiet, knowing that urging him to get to the point will only make him drag this out longer. She’s wondering what could possibly cause this kind of secrecy, but somewhere in her gut, she’s always known.

  Sighing and not looking at her, he says, “She thought that maybe Ambrose was her father, not Ethan.”

  Nell sits down, felled by an assertion both outrageous and obvious. Something known but never spoken of.

  “The timing?”

  “Is possible.” Her father gets up out of his chair and walks to the wall hung with a gallery of Quincy ancestors preserved much like the blackbuck out front. He’s searching, and Nell is taking in this news when he says, “And look.”

  He points to a fra
med picture of her ancestors Ambrose and Ethan Quincy, side-by-side, arms around each other, knees tied together at the start of a three-legged race. “She, much more than you, had it. But even you must see it here. These things tend to skip generations, you know.” He’s gesturing to the picture. “The dark hair, the dark circles under the eyes. Luckily for you, you got some of my Italian, so it blends more on you. But it was quite striking with your mother’s pale coloring. Striking to anyone who knew the family.” Nell is peering closely at the photograph. “Or even looked at pictures. She looked quite a bit like him. Black Irish, you know. Bit of an adventurer, loved travel and speed, just movement really.”

  Nell looks at the picture as if hearing something through an echo chamber, pieces and parts of the Quincy family refitting and reconfiguring in her head. “That’s my grandfather?”

  “It would explain the money. Why Ethan never changed his will. He was hoping for children of his own. Your mother and I were sure of it. Of course, everyone made out like she was crazy, most of all Loulou, who was going to have issues with your mother no matter what. Loulou revered both her brothers, but Ambrose was the favorite. That’s what everyone said. To suggest something this tawdry, a love triangle among brothers . . . Well, you know how she was.” Nell did know. Loulou had been prim, uptight, and never very interested in any of the sensual pleasures of life except the pleasure of new clothes. “She pretended your mother was crazy, spiteful because she never felt like she belonged and Baldwin got all the attention. Imagine being jealous of an old washout like Baldwin.” Her father leans closer toward the photograph, as if contemplating this. “But these things are never rational, are they? It was clear to everyone that Loulou was expecting a level of gratitude your mother never mustered. But how is a child supposed to do that, even understand it, really? It made things strained. The rest, you know.”

  At Nell’s silence he says, “She never had proof, of course. Never had anything but what she believed in her gut. And, of course, me. I agreed with her one hundred percent.” He says it with pride that makes Nell wonder if he’d had to convince himself. Maybe he’d done it so successfully that now he even believed it.

  “Grandmother May would have been pretty shady,” Nell says, and peeking out at her is both the recognition of the truth when one hears it and the realization that she wishes she didn’t know.

  Because Nell can instantly see it from the other side. What was Loulou supposed to do? There was no proof really, besides a family resemblance—and that was murky evidence. What her mother believed in the end couldn’t be corroborated or unequivocally known. And so it was just unpleasant, perceived as a veiled vehicle for a complaint about money or favoritism. Frankly, the more Nell thinks it through, the more impressed she becomes with Loulou and Baldwin and their patience and long-standing attempts to overlook this accusatory “quirk” of her mother’s, her insistence on a conspiracy theory of the most unsavory kind. Their efforts to continue to include her, to leave it unsaid, to hope she “grew out” of this belief—really, what more could one do in a family?

  And perhaps this made Loulou more comfortable with the money. Let her allow herself to take, to spend. Not that she’d made this calculation consciously. And Ethan hadn’t made the money either, really. From what Nell understood, it all came from Israel. Ethan attended board meetings and collected checks and that was the extent of his involvement with Israel Quincy’s iron ore concern. It was all just Israel Quincy’s money floating through the family, wasn’t it?

  “And this,” her father says, flipping up the necklace to inspect it. It’s been a long time since she’s been this close to her father apart from a quick welcoming hug. He smells of bourbon and sharp citrus—probably Italian cologne. Since when did her father wear cologne? She imagines it’s a gift from his hypothetical lady-friend. “You know Ambrose traveled the world. Went to India, I’m sure of it.”

  “So?” Nell says, stepping back so the necklace is forced to drop.

  “So nothing. But I never saw Old Lou wear this.” Her father is shaking his head. “Had a diamond stashed on her at all times, the bigger the better. She would have sported that thing like nobody’s business. It had been ruined for her, I’m sure of it. That’s the only reason she wouldn’t show it off.” He’s still staring at it and then says, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but that’s the only reason she’d give it to you.”

  Her aunt-grandmother-whatever, who couldn’t stand her mother and was going crazy at the end of her life, left a gaudy piece of costume jewelry to Nell. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even unexpected. Yet standing here in the midst of everything that is almost hers, the large gifts going off to her cousins, it makes her eyes water a little.

  “It’s a serious piece, all right.” Her father knows his way around jewelry. Nell has never cared until now. “You should get it out of here and get it appraised right away.”

  “I thought it might be costume.”

  “Not costume.” He steps closer with his hands behind his back, examining it. “I’m telling you.” He straightens and looks her in the eye. “You should take it to the museum and have someone look at it. You’ll need to protect it.”

  The door squeaks open, and the sound of the O’Jays fills the room.

  “Not to alarm you, but you guys probably want to come out for this,” Emerson says.

  The living room is deserted, as if everyone has taken cover. Pansy is in the front hall trying, with manic insistence, to give away flower arrangements to fleeing guests. It’s then they hear the shouting.

  Baldwin and Louis Morrell are in the library, silhouetted in the dim lighting.

  “I understand you’re with a fancy firm.” Baldwin’s face is red. “But if you can’t handle this . . . I’ve been advised.” His voice rises into an uncharacteristic screech. “I have my own advisors!”

  “Baldwin,” Louis says in a professional voice. Even from across the room, Nell can spot the clench in his jaw. “Why don’t we just calm down?”

  In the history of the world has anyone ever calmed down when spoken to like that? Rookie move, Nell thinks.

  And it enflames her uncle, who looks like he’s ramping up for a tell-off. It’s then Nell’s father steps forward, giving Louis a complete up-and-down inspection before turning to Baldwin and saying, “Why don’t we go out for a little air? I haven’t been down to the pond in ages.” Baldwin looks startled and then stalls, but her father leans in confidentially. “Everyone can hear you.”

  Her father steps out on the terrace. When Baldwin follows silently and immediately, Nell’s reminded that they’ve known each other since before she was born. She can hear her father’s soothing tones asking after the dilapidated landscaping, watches as he hands Baldwin his cigarette pack unasked, which Baldwin surprisingly accepts, and then they are out of sight.

  “That your dad?” Louis asks, skimming a hand over his bare head.

  “He is. What was that about?”

  “Baldwin’s pretty sauced. He was just blowing off steam.” Louis is probably used to being an unwitting target, being constantly immersed in dicey family scenarios. But having someone push that much energy at you has to be unnerving, even if it isn’t about you. Especially if it’s not.

  “What was he in a state about?”

  Louis puffs out his cheeks and blows. “You, actually.”

  “Me?”

  He sits down on the sagging chenille sofa. “You gave away some stuff.”

  “I thought I could do that.”

  “Technically, it’s a little early to start giving out the miscellany. That said, people do it all the time.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. It was just a bunch of junk,” she says, sinking down next to him, keeping a good three feet between them.

  “That comment’s not going to calm down your uncle any.”

  The squishy sofa is already doing a number on her back. It’s really made for reclining. The room’s lined in leather-bound books by the yard, burgundy and acid gr
een volumes that are essentially wallpaper. Recent paperback thrillers are wedged next to a complete set of Wilkie Collins and a chunk of Balzac in translation foxed with mold. The dim light makes her feel drowsy. The adrenaline of the day has faded away, leaving exhaustion. A new flat-screen TV sits on an ancient card table, a thick black cord snaking out of the side and disappearing into a hole drilled straight into the middle of one of the wide planks in the floor. She remembers coming down on summer mornings and lying with Emerson and Pansy on the stiff throw rugs, watching staticky cartoons on the old TV propped on the same card table.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you asked me yesterday, if I had any message from Loulou.” He sounds stilted. The usually composed Mr. Morrell looks nervous. She’s wondering if he has bad news. “You should know she was very certain about what she wanted concerning the gifts. I advised her against it, but she was adamant.”

  At Nell’s furrowed eyebrows he says, “Not about the gifts in particular. I mean, who cares what I think? Against specifying them in the will. I thought it should be distributed through a trust, the whole thing actually, for tax purposes.”

  Nell hazily remembers this from her one estate planning class in law school. She hasn’t thought to question the structure of the estate. This isn’t her area of law.

  “But she wanted it specifically enumerated. Even more so after I explained the tax and probate consequences. She wanted to make absolutely sure that a judge distributed the gifts as she intended. It’s not uncommon to do it this way when there’s suspicion of a challenge. I get the feeling she thought it was going to be controversial. She never said anything, but I think she was concerned with your uncle Baldwin monkeying around with parts of it. That’s why she made you executor, not him.”