The Late Clara Beame Read Free

even Laura was quite certain of the relationship between them and Alice and David. The old lady had been fond of Laura’s father, but when he had remarried his first wife after Laura’s mother’s death Aunt Clara had refused to see him again. Funny old fat spinster, Henry reflected. He had only seen her photograph, but Clara Beame had borne a remarkable resemblance to Queen Victoria, with the same determined mouth and shrewd eyes.
    Laura was no longer playing, and her young face was turned to her husband. “I was just thinking of Aunt Clara,” she said.
    “So was I,” Henry told her, laughing. Laura smiled at him. There wasn’t a plane or contour of her face which didn’t seem gentle. She had shimmering dark eyes, large and innocent, and a full mouth. Her hair, the color of sunlight, always surprised people, for it was not in keeping with the darkness of her eyes. People referred to her fondly as ‘little Laura, though she was as tall as Alice Bulowe. But she had an artless, soft way of speaking and a certain shyness. She looked younger than her twenty-six years, and younger than Alice, who was the same age.
    “What were you thinking about dear old Aunt Clara?” Henry asked lightly.
    “I was just remembering how it was around Christmas, when she was alive,” Laura answered, her voice edged with sadness. “Not that she seemed lovable in any way, to others. But I loved her very much. And I can’t tell even you, darling, what it meant to me to discover, when I was about fourteen, that she loved me, too. I was more grateful for that than for all her money — the fact that she loved me.”
    “Apparently she didn’t love Alice,” Henry observed, knocking his pipe against the fender.
    Laura frowned. “No. I suppose not. I don’t know why, though, except that, even when we were children, Alice was always so independent and full of pride. And — difficult.” Laura touched a key, then hastily pulled her hand away as the piano gave out a discordant note.
    “You still haven’t figured out your relationship to your aunt, if she was your aunt, and Alice and David?” Henry asked curiously.
    “Oh, I’ve tried,” Laura admitted. “My father always called her Aunt Clara, but she may have been his grandfather’s niece. I’m almost sure, now, that that is the way it was. And Alice — I think she is really Aunt Clara’s third cousin. I never knew Alice’s parents.”
    “You didn’t miss a thing,” her husband told her with fervor. “Her father was hardly ever around home, if you could call that cold-water flat a home. Even when he wasn’t on duty he’d still hang around the firehouse, playing poker and drinking beer. He was off duty when he fell from the roof of that tenement house, and there wasn’t much left for Alice and Dave and their mother. As for Mamma Gates, she hardly made a living in her cheap millinery shop. A fierce kind of woman. I can’t remember her being human.”
    “She had to work so hard,” Laura said uneasily.
    “My parents did too,” Henry pointed out. “But we managed to get a little fun out of living. And had something to share. We took Alice and Dave in when their mother died of tuberculosis. It was a good thing it wasn’t for long, for otherwise we’d all have starved. Wasn’t Alice about ten when Aunt Clara sent for her to live up here, with you?”
    “Yes. We were both ten.” Laura looked absently at the tree, seeing the ghosts of other Christmases. “I always thought it was too bad that Aunt Clara wouldn’t take Dave in too, but he was older, and Aunt Clara never liked boys. Or men.”
    And a good thing for all of us too, Henry thought, looking around the room with satisfaction.
    “But she sent Dave to that school,” Laura added. “And then to college and medical school. She left him the same amount of money she left Alice, though she’d never let him come here, not once.”
    Laura sighed. “Alice and I weren’t ever friends, really. I did admire her so much