The street the show house was on was lined with cars. Marian found a parking place and they joined several other women walking up the slight hill toward the large Victorian house, site of this year’s event. Faith felt oddly like a pilgrim.
Thoughts of cockleshells and the Wife of Bath crossed her mind. Marian had stayed focused. “I think this one is to raise money for hunger. Not
The perfectly restored stately Victorian had been painted a soft purple, with white trim and black shutters. A large porch wrapped around the front and it was filled with wicker furniture and flowering plants. The front garden was equally spectacular. A hedge of white lilacs separated it from the street and the fragrance brought Faith back to Winslow Street and the day Sarah died.
She reached over and looped her arm through Marian’s. Her mother-in-law smiled.
“They totally redid the gardens for this. The house belongs to a young couple. They moved to a condominium for several months while the decorators took over. They don’t get to keep anything except the window treatments —and of course the floors have all been redone, walls painted and papered. And the garden. They keep that. I wish they’d do my house.”
Faith thought of the mountain of objects filling the large Norwell Dutch Colonial. It was not exactly a decorator’s dream; more like a phantasm appearing after too much rich food at bedtime.
They had their tickets. A woman standing beside the front door and dressed exactly like Marian but in different hues took them, dropping the stubs into a beribboned basket.
“Welcome, ladies. You can tour the house in any way you wish, but we think if you start here in the foyer, moving to the dining room, then the living room and kitchen before going upstairs, you’ll get the best effect. Plan to spend a lot of time on the third floor. It’s an old-fashioned girl’s bower. The committee has a few gift items for sale there, which I’m sure you won’t want to miss.” She handed them each a booklet listing the names of the decorators for the various rooms, sponsors, and advertisers. Faith looked at the number of women roaming about on a weekday and realized that show houses meant big money.
“Oh, look, Faith, don’t you like the way they’ve stenciled the floor? For a moment, I thought it was parquet, but it’s paint. Now, that wouldn’t be hard. It’s merely a series of diamond shapes. All you need is masking tape and paint.”
“And someone to do it,” Faith commented. Her idea of do-it-yourself was dialing the phone.
The foyer, which was almost as large as Faith’s dining room, was lovely. The tall windows let in the light and the decorator had wisely left them almost bare, looping some sheer muslin across the top and letting it hang down to the floor on each side. In one corner, there was a small fireplace surrounded by the original Minton tiles in teal blue and white. The walls had been lacquered and glazed in the same blue.
Marian had a little notebook out and was busily jotting down ideas. She was a great one for gluing pinecones she’d sprayed gold onto Styro-foam forms and putting up potpourri from her garden, but Faith had yet to see her mother-in-law carry out anything more complicated. To be fair, it would be hard to find the time. Marian’s volunteer work alone constituted at least two full-time jobs. Then, she was always pitching in at the office, or rushing to help one of her brood.
Dick Fairchild had recently taken a partner, Sheila Harding, acknowledging at long last the unlikeli-hood that any of his children would take over the business. Sheila was a “crackerjack,” according to Dick: “Keeps her ear so close to the ground, I swear she’ll grow roots one of these days!” But Marian still liked to keep her hand in. Faith suspected it was more that she liked to view people’s houses, especially in her own town.
Marian leaned over and lowered her voice.
“Pier 1 pots, but they look expensive here. Besides, put anything on a sconce on the wall and people assume it’s worth a lot.”
Faith filed this tip away for much-future reference. She’d be in a parsonage of some sort for most of her life and these usually did not offer up much scope for the imagination. The Fairchilds had built a small house on Sanpere Island in Maine last summer and as far as decorating went, she was thinking IKEA.
“What a wonderful dining room. So big!” Marian exclaimed. “People had larger families in those days; even though the table is set for twelve, it could hold more.”
Here the decorator had stuck to traditional Vic-toriana—huge mirrors reflected the ornately carved dark furniture. A Boston fern the size of a small shrub stood in the bow window. Heavy fringed damask drapes in the hue known as ashes of roses—Faith had gleaned this from Marian—
framed the windows. The tassels of the tiebacks fell in carefully arranged silken heaps on the deep blue and ivory Oriental carpet.
Marian was standing transfixed by the place settings. Faith was glad she had found the time to be with her mother-in-law; she was obviously having such a good time.
Just as Faith was about to trot out her own abundant store of knowledge—the plates were early Spode—she was stunned to see Marian grab one of the crisp white napkins from the table, sending the Tiffany Audubon sterling forks clang-ing against the fruit-laden epergne centerpiece.
Stripping the ring off, Marian Fairchild flung the serviette to the ground and exclaimed, “This napkin ring! It’s Tom’s! As if I wouldn’t know it anywhere. His initials are as plain as day. And here are Ben’s and little Amy’s!” Napkins were flying every which way.
The hostess whose job it was to prevent overfa-miliarity with the decor was moving swiftly from her chair by the door to the rescue. Marian put up her hand. The woman froze, stunned by both the gesture and Mrs. Fairchild’s words: “Somebody call the police! These are stolen goods!”
Faith was slightly miffed. Especially since her own napkin ring was staring her in the face. It wasn’t as distinctive as Tom’s—a large sterling re-pousse ring, originally his great-grandfather’s—
but there were her initials in an elegant script and the slight dent from the time she’d heaved it at Hope and missed, hitting the dining room wall instead.
Yes, she was miffed. She’d spent most of Saturday fruitlessly chasing all over New England; Marian simply walked into a house barely a five-minute drive from Faith’s own and came up a winner.
“Please! What are you doing!” The volunteer had come unstuck and was frantically picking up the napkins.
“tFp, Thomas Preston Fairchild. It was his great-grandfather’s name and it’s his. I’ll thank you to call the police immediately or at the least show me to a phone,” Marian said.
By now, a crowd of very interested bystanders had gathered and others were trying to squeeze through the door. Word of the ruckus was spreading quickly throughout the house: Some woman was running amok with the table settings in the dining room!
Marian Fairchild was not paying the slightest attention to anyone except the hostess, who was beginning to strike her as slightly stupid. She’d recited the names and birth dates on each ring without looking—what further proof could the woman want? Faith, meanwhile, was taking the opportunity to scrutinize the rest of the room for a Fairchild gravy ladle or the odd butter knife.
The onlookers were parted by a small, very determined figure. She took Marian by the elbow and said, “I’m sure we can straighten this all out.
These are such lovely things, aren’t they? Of course it’s a great temptation to pick them up, but why don’t I just put them back where they belong and we can have a little talk?”
Faith moved quickly next to her mother-in-law, who was ready to blow a gasket, although mo-mentarily speechless. “I’m Faith Fairchild and this is my mother-in-law, Mrs. Richard Fairchild.
It may be hard to believe, but these
These little terrier types never do, Faith reminded herself. Fixing Faith with a stern eye, the woman asked. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“We’re absolutely sure,” Faith replied.
Marian had found her voice. “Faith, dear, she thinks I was trying to steal them! She thinks I’m a thief—or a
