The Late Clara Beame Read Online Free PDF

station.”
    “I’m so glad you’re coming home soon!” Laura told him.
    “Why?” Henry asked good-naturedly.
    She felt foolish. “Because — well, because of the storm, of course. Evelyn’s at the station now, picking up Alice and David. The plows ought to be out on the main road. I’m sorry about Mr. Carr. He won’t be able to come tomorrow, will he?”
    “He’s here with me,” Henry said. “So I’m bringing him along. What’s the matter, sweet?”
    Laura looked at the dark hall. She could hear the bass ticking of the grandfather’s clock. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”
    “Well, don’t be. I’ll be there soon. Lights all right?”
    “They’re flickering.”
    Then he said, as he always did, in a low, warm voice: “Love me?”
    “Always,” Laura answered, in the ritualistic reply. Then she repeated, “Always!”
    She was smiling when she turned on the lamp in the hall. The dark mahogany of the clock beamed in the lamplight. When the lights of a car swung through the glass door in the hall, Laura knew that Alice and David had arrived.
    While Evelyn got out of the car and opened the doors with a flourish, David muttered to his sister: “You have it all down now, don’t you? You know exactly what to say and do?”
    “Yes,” Alice assured him. “I still don’t think he knows anything.”
    “I think he does. That’s why he kept seeing you all last summer. He was trying to find out if you knew.”
    Huddling together, Alice and David walked up the three wide stairs to a door already opening. Laura stood on the threshold, smiling. “I’m so glad you got here safely. Hurry in!”
    Alice thought: “As usual, she looks about eighteen, in that pink wool dress. And a pink ribbon in her hair, too, for God’s sake! Why doesn’t she grow up?”
    As they sat around the fire with their drinks, Alice was thinking, All this, by rights, should be mine. Laura knew on which side her bread was buttered. Playing up to the old woman. How could Aunt Clara have been so stupid not to have seen? I was rather stupid, myself. I should have contested the will.
    Laura’s smile was almost too bright, as she poured martinis for her guests. She could feel the hatred in the room like a malignant danger. As she gave David his glass her fingers touched his and they were cold and stiff. Startled, she looked up into his black eyes. They were studying her with an odd expression, one she could not fathom. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel that David shared his sister’s hatred. She remembered how concerned he had been last summer, after her accident. He had stayed on for two weeks, in spite of his appointments in Cleveland, not leaving until she was out of danger. In many ways he had shown kindness, apparently feeling that the accident was in some way his own fault.
    On the twelfth night after the accident he had stayed up all night with her, giving her injections because the nurse had accidentally given her an overdose of sedatives. “If it happens again,” he had warned the nurse in a hard voice, “I’ll call the police. Mrs. Frazier might have died. It’s lucky that I missed my train and came back.”
    The nurse, grave and frightened, had nodded dumbly. Later, Laura had implored David sleepily: “Please don’t report her. It was an accident, and she’s very young.”
    David had also given Henry a sedative that night. And he had stayed two days longer. Before leaving he had given instructions to Henry: “Just keep an eye on that nurse, and check on the dosages.” Henry, white-faced and gaunt, had promised.
    Remembering, Laura smiled up at David. “Are the martinis strong enough?” she asked. She wished she knew him better. She had never before noticed that he was quite handsome in an intense sort of way.
    “Strong enough,” he replied curtly, and as she turned she could feel Alice’s eyes on her. There was no one but Alice who hated her in this relentless way. She felt