Furmidable Foes

16

June 3, 2019

Monday

“Took longer than I thought.” Harry dropped into a chair.

“Did.” Janice sat next to her in the women’s building of St. Luke’s.

“It was a huge success thanks to you, Harry. You had the idea and convinced the rest of us.” Pamela smiled.

The Dorcas Guild had returned at 10:30 A.M. to double-check, pick up anything they missed yesterday, and enjoy a “girls’ lunch” of the leftover food. Why does food always taste better the second day?

Sitting around one rectangle table, the workhorses of the Guild chatted, compared notes.

“We actually surprised the Rev.” Mags laughed.

A scratch at the door made Harry rise to open it. “Beggars.”

“Smells good,” Elocution declared as Lucy Fur and Cazenovia marched in.

Susan laughed as she picked up three paper plates, piling chicken and ribs on each one. “Well, girls, they helped yesterday. I consider them members of the Dorcas Guild.”

Tazio, Renie, and Libby, young members, listened more than talking themselves. Tazio cut some of her fried chicken for the Reverend’s cats.

“Weren’t the necklace and those earrings spectacular? I have never seen anything like that short of royal displays in European museums.” Mags thought the food delicious, especially since she didn’t have to cook.

“Funny you should say that.” Harry cut open a baked potato she had put in the microwave.

Given that Harry worked off every calorie, she could eat whatever she wanted. Not one Dorcas member joined her in a baked potato but they all watched her pile butter, sour cream, and bacon bits on it.

“That’s got to be one thousand calories,” Janice exclaimed.

Harry looked at her. “So what?”

“I can’t believe you eat like that,” Janice replied.

“I’m a farm girl. What can I say? Back to royalty. Fashions in jewelry change like clothing. Think of Tiffany’s designer, Jean Michel Schlumberger. And you can always pick out Cartier’s design from the 1930s.”

“Maybe you can. I can’t,” Renie, bright red hair, confessed.

Susan, consoling, focused on Renie. “Harry goes on research jags. Never go into any library with her or sit next to her when she turns on her computer.”

“Oh, Susan.”

“Harry, it’s a function of your notorious nosiness.” Her best friend giggled.

“I am not nosy. I am curious.”

“Yeah. Agreed.” Susan put down her fish. “But you were going to force us to listen to your idea about jewelry fashions. Here we are, a captive audience.”

“You know, some cats wear jeweled collars,” Elocution, between mouthfuls, announced.

“Why would any cat wear a collar? It’s awful.” Cazenovia flipped her longhaired calico tail.

“No one wants to, of course.” Lucy Fur jumped in. “It’s so their humans can show off.”

“Why don’t the humans wear a jeweled collar? Why put one on us?” Elocution demanded.

“Because they have no sense. Maybe the rich lady puts a collar on her cat identical to her own choker.” Lucy Fur, like Elocution, thought the whole thing absurd.

Harry, not understanding the cat conversation, food dripping out of their mouths as they talked, answered Susan. “If you put up pictures of Mrs. Vanderbilt, Alva Belmont, those grand society madams near the end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth, look at the jewelry.”

“Okay.” Janice was interested. “I remember one photo of Alva Belmont with a pearl necklace, three strands of pearls, hanging below her waist.”

“If you go before photography there are drawings of queens in full regalia. The jewelry for Queen Isabella II, wife of Edward I, is different from what Elizabeth I wore. English royalty. Factor in other countries and there is a lot of variety. Different stones, colors meant something; the jewelry was a statement.”

“But isn’t jewelry always a statement?” Mags interjected.

“Yes,” Pamela simply said.

“What I’m getting at is that our nameless woman’s jewelry is a bit more complicated than what an American woman at the time would normally wear.” Harry pushed on.

“Like Martha Washington?” Janice wondered.

“The first First Lady possessed good, understated taste. Abigail Adams, of course, would find such display frivolous. Dolley Madison liked color and display but she, too, was careful not to display too much wealth. It wasn’t considered American.”

Everyone was thinking.

“Do you really think we were that self-aware?” Tazio asked.

“I do. The last thing we wanted was to look or act like royalty or aristocrats. Think of what our leaders wrote about before we fought, while we fought, and after we fought.” Harry finished her delicious potato, picking up the skin and eating it. “Sorry, I should have cut the skin.”

“It’s easier that way.” Libby, with a cute round face, smiled. “I was a history major at Chapel Hill. You know we never studied or discussed fashion.”

“No one does.” Susan shook her head. “How stupid. The fastest road into the past is through sports, the arts, fashion. Just think of whalebone corsets.”

“Dear God. It’s a wonder our foremothers could breathe.” Pamela laughed.

Susan, wise to Harry’s ways, said, “What are you driving at?”

“Well.” A pause followed this. “I don’t think the owner of that necklace and earrings was an American.”

“Really?” Mags was now completely fascinated.

“Too ornate. Too flashy. All those diamonds and pearls. Way too flashy.”

“In other words, Mrs. Washington would not have worn them.” Pamela cut a small square of cherry cobbler, passing the plate.

“Nor would any other woman whose husband had political designs?” Tazio questioned.

“That would be rubbing people’s noses in it.” Harry continued. “Even a successful businessman, hoping to parade his wealth through his wife, had best be careful, even after the Revolutionary War. The vulgarity came in the last half of the nineteenth century.”

“You know, Harry, you just might be on to something.” Janice rested her chin in the cup of her hand. “Like maybe those bones belong to a diplomat’s wife?”

“Or the mistress of someone from Spain, say, or France, or Spain’s colonies,” Mags added.

“But then if she disappeared, wouldn’t someone have noticed?” Pamela wisely noted.

“You’d certainly think so,” Janice replied.

“Well, Harry, what do we do with what we’ve got?” Tazio wondered.

“Just hear me out.” Harry held up her hand. “We secure the jewelry in our safe, where it is already. We write up the discovery, the time, the building of St. Luke’s, our history. We know when she was dumped on the Taylors’, pretty much.”

“Why do we?” Mags eyebrows raised.

“Think, Mags. If their grave was opened even two weeks after their deaths, that would have been obvious. She had to be placed on their coffins within a day or two of their joint burial. Someone could dig up the freshly dug earth, toss her in, replace the earth.”

This really got them.

“You’re right!” Janice nearly clapped her hands.

“So if we write our history, each year on our anniversary, which I take to be when the organ was first played, we hand out a booklet with photos of St. Luke’s, the gardens, the original architectural plans, the history of Charles and Rachel West, of subsequent pastors, and our big mystery. On that day we open our church to all, which we pretty much do anyway, and we display the necklace and earrings.”

No one said one word. Minutes passed. The cats looked at one another, feeling this an excellent opportunity to steal more food, which they did.

Finally Pamela, smiling broadly, added, “With armed guards. Drama.”

“Yes! Once a year.” Harry beamed. “I don’t think St. Luke’s has ever received our historical due.”

“Hear. Hear.” All the ladies rapped the table.

“Now what?” Mags asked.

“We talk to Reverend Jones. We secure his approval. We begin writing St. Luke’s history, which will take time, lots of work, digging up photos, all that stuff.”

“Like Katherine Butterfield’s history of St. Anne’s-Belfield.” Libby mentioned the late historian of the fashionable private school of Albemarle County.

“If we could produce something half as good, we’d be in deep clover.”

Harry smiled, as she had much admired Mrs. Butterfield.

Susan tapped her spoon on a glass. “All in favor of securing the jewelry and displaying it on our annual foundation day, say ‘Aye.’ ”

“Aye.” In unison.

“All in favor of a history with drawings and photos of St. Luke’s, say ‘Aye.’ ”

“Aye.” In unison.

Then Janice piped up. “You didn’t ask for all opposed.”

“Janice, the vote was unanimous.” Susan threw up her hands.

“Oh. Okay,” Janice agreed.

Lucy Fur, full, said to her two friends, “Do you think Poppy will go for it?”

Elocution replied, “I do.”

Cazenovia added, “As long as the history is accurate. Doesn’t hide anything. He’ll like the idea.”

“Given the necklace, well, that’s a mystery. Humans love a mystery.” Lucy Fur thought a moment. “That means they have to write about the cats, dogs, and horses of St. Luke’s.”

“Harry will see to that.” Cazenovia cleaned her whiskers.

“Maybe they’ll find the answer to the bones,” Lucy Fur said.

“Given that her neck was broken, it can’t be a good story.” Cazenovia raised her voice. “You know, we don’t kill one another. Maybe once in a blue moon but cats don’t kill one another. Humans do.”

“We know that.” Elocution lifted a long, silky eyebrow.

“Talk of old troubles might bring on new,” Cazenovia said with authority.