Shattered Silk Read Online Free PDF Page B

grandchildren as Mrs. MacDougal would ever have. Pat was an only child, and he had married late in life.
    She suspected that Joseph was as shocked by the change in her as she was by his aging, but he was far too well-bred to let his feelings show. He bowed her into the house and helped her off with her coat, tsk-tsking over how wet she was. "You should not have walked in such weather, Miss Karen. Had Mrs. Mac informed me earlier of your coming, I would have sent the car around."
    "Sent?" Karen repeated, with an affectionate smile. "I thought you refused to let anyone else drive for Mrs. Mac."
    A shadow of vexation crossed Joseph's dark, patrician features. "I regret to inform you, Miss Karen, that the absurd laws of this municipality have forbidden me that activity. However, there is a young person-"
    Before he could go on, a parrotlike shriek proclaimed the arrival of Mrs. MacDougal. She wore one of the fantastic garments for which she had long been famous in Washington society. Karen was accustomed to her hostess's eccentricities in dress-Mrs. MacDougal had once received her in a Cossack uniform, complete with slung pelisse and furry hat-but this ensemble reached new heights of bizarreness. It appeared to be a wedding gown of ivory satin, the low-cut bodice encrusted with pearls and brilliants, the skirt overlaid with panels of lace. The effect was marred not only by Mrs. MacDougal's face- which, as her son had once remarked, resembled that of one of the handsomer Egyptian mummies-but by the patter of pearls falling from the bodice and the fact that the dress had been made for a taller, more full-bodied woman.
    As Mrs. MacDougal clasped Karen in an affectionate embrace, a perfect hail of pearls splattered onto the floor. Karen gave a cry of distress. "Your beautiful gown!"
    Mrs. MacDougal grinned broadly. "My wedding dress. Never think it, would you? I seem to have shrunk. Did you ever read
She?"
    "No," Karen said, bewildered.
    "Immortal woman," Mrs. Mac explained. "Bathed in the fire of Life-two thousand years old-superbly beautiful. Went back into the fire, reversed the process- aged two thousand years in five minutes. Nasty. Felt like that myself when I tried on this dress."
    "You look wonderful."
    Mrs. MacDougal guffawed. "Age cannot wither nor custom stale my magnificent variety. Or something like that. Let me get out of this antique before it collapses completely. I just put it on to give you a sample of my wares."
    She yanked at the dress, and a shower of tiny satin-covered buttons joined the pearls littering the floor. Karen caught at the crumpling folds with careful hands, and Mrs. MacDougal stepped out of the dress. Under it she wore purple jogging pants and a sleeveless, low-cut T-shirt emblazoned in multicolored sequins with a motto so extremely vulgar that Karen's eyes literally popped. Joseph was well accustomed to his mistress's habits; he took the wedding dress from Karen's palsied grasp, and as Mrs. MacDougal escorted her out of the room she saw him advancing on the scattered ornaments with a whisk broom and dustpan, his countenance bland as cream.
    Mrs. MacDougal led Karen along a corridor. "Decided to close most of the house last year," she explained. "Too much for Joseph and the others. Moved my bedroom downstairs. Easier for everybody."
    The room they entered had been one of the small parlors. It had French doors opening onto a terrace and the famous Japanese garden. Mist blurred the outlines of the bridge and the pagoda and turned the miniature waterfall into a swaying phantom form, but the room was bright and cheerful with its red satin draperies and rose-spattered wallpaper and every light blazing. A small table was set for breakfast. Every other piece of furniture in the room, including the grand piano, was strewn with clothing.
    "Show and tell," shouted Mrs. MacDougal, as Karen stared. "Got it out this morning. Lots more where that came from."
    The collection resembled Ruth's only in the variety of