Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (8 page)

“My guest
s
will be arriving shortly. There won’t be many of them. I understand you like to work with small groups.”

“Yes, I do. No more than eight, if at all possible.”

“That’s wonderful. We shall have exactly eight persons present at the séance.”

“I’m so glad. Is there any person in particular with whom you would like to communicate this evening, Mrs. Winkworth?” Stupid question, but standard if you’re in my business. “Someone who has recently crossed over, perhaps?”

“I should be very
much
interested in learning about some of my forebears and how they survived the War of Northern Aggression, although I don’t particularly care which one you call up.”

“I see.” Yet another name for the Civil War. I wondered how
many
southernisms there were for that brutal conflict. It was a darned good thing I’d done my homework and found out about Mrs. Winkworth’s family connections and her grandparents’ names and so forth. “I should think my spirit control will be able to satisfy some of your curiosity.”

What I actually hoped was that the woman would be so intrigued by the few snippets of information Rolly
, my spirit control,
pulled out of thin air that she’d continue to hire me for séances. I know that sounds terrible, but I had to earn a living, darn it.

Oh, by the way, I’d made up Rolly
, too,
when I was ten and first started fiddling with Aunt Vi’s Ouija board. As with the Desdemona part of my business, I often wished I’d named him something more elegant, but it was too late to change things now.

“I’m so very grateful to you for coming tonight
. You can’t begin to imagine how difficult my life has been since I had to leave my home
and all my friends
,” said Mrs. Winkworth. I saw tears standing in her eyes!

Those tears startled me so much, I couldn’t think of another single thing
to say.
Her life had been difficult because her grandson had moved her from a tumble-down wreck of a former plantation in
South Carolina
to paradise? Good Lord. Some people didn’t realize their own luck.

Fortunately, my tongue-tied condition
didn’t
matter, because a honking voice
behind me bellowed,
“Mrs. Majesty! It
is
you!”

I whirled, which isn’t very spiritualistic behavior, but I knew that voice! “Mrs. Hanratty! How wonderful to see you here!” And it was. I was
overwhelmingly
grateful to see so normal a person as Pansy Hanratty in those elegant surrounding
s.
I might
even
have kissed her feet
if I were a person who did things like that.

She hurrie
d over to me. “When Mother said somebody named
Mrs. Majesty was going to
conduct
her séance, I couldn’t think of another Mrs. Majesty,
Majesty being such an uncommon name,
but I just couldn’t believe it was
the
Mrs. Majesty who belonged to Spike!”

“I am indeed that Mrs. Majesty, and . . .” Her words finally penetrated my
reeling
brain. “Your . . . your
mother
?” I glanced back to see Mrs. Winkworth leveling a quelling glance at Mrs. Hanratty.

“Really, Pansy,” said Mrs. Winkworth. “One would think you were born in a stable.”

Mrs. Hanratty laughed uproariously. “Not born in one, but I darned sure was raised in one!”

Mrs. Winkworth sighed.
I could
imagine what she was thinking:
First Pasadena and now this
.
I couldn’t for the life of me feel sorry for her.

“I’m really happy to see you here this evening, Mrs. Hanratty,” I said with feeling
.

Casting a glance of her own at her mother—it was more of a
can you believe I came from that
? glance than one of self-pity—Mrs. Hanratty went on,
“Have you met my son?”

My mouth opened
but I didn’t have a chance to speak,
which was probably just as well
since Mrs. Hanratty
then called out
, “Monty! Come over here and meet Mrs. Majesty! She’s doing the
best
job
of
training a dachshund I’ve ever seen!”

Monty Mountjoy was this woman’s son?
And Pansy Hanratty was Lurlene Winkworth’s daughter?
I swear, I think if I’d received any more surprises that evening, I might have gone ‘round the bend.

Smiling his magnificent smile, Monty joined us in front of his grandmother’s chair. “We’ve already met, Mother. Mrs. Majesty is a good friend of Harold’s, you know.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that! My, my, it’s a small world, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed,” said her son—Monty Mountjoy for heaven’s sake!—and bowed over my hand.

“You should meet her dog, Monty. You’d love him. He’s a black-and-tan dachshund, and he behaves better than the damned
poodle
in my class!”

I heard Mrs. Winkworth heave a
small, tragic,
genteel sigh behind us. I presume she didn’t approve of her daughter’s language.

“Harold’s told me about Spike, Mother. But I thought you told me poodles were the smartest dogs in the canine world.”

Talk about self-possession. Monty Mountjoy had tons of the stuff.
Not only did he speak
to his mother and me as if we were mere mortals,
but
he’d
remembered my dog’s name was
Spike! And he’d only several minutes earlier been telling me about receiving
poisoned-pen
letters—and why he believed he was getting them. I was really impressed. No wonder he was
such
a
smashing
hit on the silver screen.

“Poodles are smart as whips.
The
poor poodle
in Spike’s class
—Fluffy, if you can believe it—has an owner who’s thick as a plank. You know my training methods, Monty. Train the owner, and the dog will behave itself.”

“It worked on me,” Monty said with a wink for me. My heart fluttered violently for a moment or two, even though
I already knew
he didn’t car
e for women. You figure it out, because I sure can’t.

Mrs. Hanratty smacked her son’s arm playfully. “It certainly did work on you!”

I think that Pansy Hanratty had tried to spiff herself up for the evening. She wore a long green gown that looked rather like a horse blanket, although I’m sure it wasn’t supposed to. If I weren’t there to perform a job of work for which goggling was strictly prohibited, I might well have goggled, and not merely at Mrs. Hanratty’s outfit. But, honestly. Never, in a million years, would I have connected Mrs. Pansy Hanratty, the dog lady; to Mrs. Lurlene Winkworth, proud and elegant daughter of the South, with a capital S; much less
would I
have pegged
the dog-loving Mrs. Hanratty
as the mother of Monty Mountjoy,
the man
over whom women swooned in packs and droves
and
he,
who didn’t give a fig for any of them
.

Then a shriek came from the entryway—which was arched in the Spanish style—and we all whirled around to behold Lola de la Monica in all her glory. And she definitely radiated glory.

“
Monty
!”
was
the word she sh
rieked. She followed it up with,
“My
darling
!” Then she all but flew across the front parlor’s classy Persian rug and flung herself into the arms of Monty Mountjoy, who evidently had braced himself for this event, because he didn’t even stagger.

My impressedness index got a
huge
boost that night. Not only did Lola de la Monica have an accent that gave no hint of her roots—which Harold Kincaid told me all about later on in the evening—but she actually sounded kind of Spanish. She also wore an ensemble that might have been painted by
Goya
in one of his mo
re amorous moods. Flowing
white
covered her from creamy
ivory
shoulders to slender ankles.
Naturally, the draperies were slender enough to show off her flawless figure. No bust flattener for Miss Lola de la Monica, thank you very much.
Her shoes looked like those a Flamenco dancer might wear.

The séance went pretty well, all things considered. After I’d had Rolly chat with a couple of Mrs. Winkworth’s more grandiose forebears, including a colonel of the Confederate Army who
’d
died shortly after the war ended, Lola de la Monica wanted me to get in touch with the spirit of William Desmond Taylor. Her request interested me, since she was one of the women whose name
s
had been linked with Mr. Taylor’s. The list of said women was long and illustrious and included such exalted names as Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand
besides Miss de la Monica.

Naturally, although I hadn’t expected to be chatting with Mr. Taylor that evening, Rolly and I pulled the matter off with
élan
. We also wea
seled out of naming the murderer
by having Mr. Taylor tell the
assembled séance attendees
that he hadn’t seen
the face of
his killer. There are always ways out of these things if you stay on your toes.

Life is pretty darned interesting sometimes. It got even more interesting as the evening progressed, and not in a good way. In actual fact, when I drove home that night, I considered flinging myself off a high hill somewhere.

But Daisy Gumm Majesty is no cowa
rd, whatever else she might be. Anyhow, it was a long drive to a hill from which I could fling myself
that would be high enough for me to land
without
merely
breaking an arm or a leg
, which would only have laid me up and hurt a lot
,
so I didn’t.

Chapter Four

“Lola de la Monica wants you to do
what
?”

Once more Billy and I sat at the
kitchen
table, and once more we were eating a delicious breakfast prepared for us by Aunt Vi. Pa was there, too, but he didn’t scowl at me as Billy was doing. In truth,
Pa
looked rather pleased to learn about his daughter’s next assignment, which didn’t really have a thing to do with spiritualism, except in the most pedestrian way.
He’d already taken Spike for his walk—Pa and Spike went for a walk
(with a leash)
around the neighborhood every morning—but I’d slept in because I’d come home so late the night before.

Billy had waited breakfast for me, which might have been endearing if it hadn’t signified to me yet one more indication of a decline in his overall condition. The Billy I’d married would have wolfed down his breakfast, walked with Pa and Spike, then come home and had another breakfast with me. I mean, he’d have done all that on a weekend, since he’d
have been at work during the week. Before he’d gone off to war, he’d
been prepared to work as an automobile mechanic at the Hull Motor Works.
Mr. Hull had said the job was
Billy’s
as soon as the war ended. But we already know how that had turned out. At any rate, t
he
morning
after Mrs. Winkworth’s séance, I got the impression Billy was only eating because if he didn’t, I’d nag him. I also got the impression he’d been drinking rather deeply of his morphine syrup.

Poor Billy. I honestly and truly despaired for him.

As for me
,
I toyed with my food that morning. I’ve read that expression
in lots of
books, but my appetite
wasn’t
often dulled by care
; hence
, as I’ve already mentioned,
my failure to achieve the slim and boyish figure so admired in those days
. It was
dulled
that morning
,
though
,
with a vengeance
. What’s more, my heart ached, and I positively dreaded what I’d be facing during the next few weeks
.

I repeated for my husband’s sake,
“She wants me to be her spiritual guide during the filming of
The Fire
at
Sunset
. That’s the picture they’re going to shoot at Mrs. Winkworth’s place.”

“Good God,” said Billy.

Pa shot him a swift glance. I’m sure he was as worried about Billy as I, although he never said
a single thing about his own cares or Billy’s health, bless his heart. H
e said, “What’s her place like, by the way? I understand it’s grand and glorious.”