The Widow's Demise Read Free Page A

deep emotion. His
eyes never left Delores across the room.
    ***
    The last dance before the food was to be served was
advertised as a waltz, the relatively new and daring form of dance
where the partners actually touched, hand to hip, and whirled in
unison about the periphery of the floor. Both Lionel Trueman and
Macy went up to Delores, and were politely rebuffed. Instead, she
walked towards the curtain that walled off the powder room and
paused beside a man who was standing there and who had been
watching her cross the floor. He was a darkly handsome man of
middle age, with brown eyes and black hair and a distinguished
bearing. A woman, who may have been his wife, was seated a little
ways behind him.
    Delores said something to the man, and he
took her hand. The woman, from her chair, offered a protest.
    “I can’t refuse our hostess,” the man said,
and followed Delores out onto the dance floor.
    “Who is that about to waltz with our
hostess?” Marc said.
    “That’s Cecil Denfield,” Robert said. “He’s a
lawyer in town. That’s his wife Audrey, sitting over there beside
the curtain.”
    “She doesn’t look too happy,” Beth said.
    “Our hostess doesn’t take no for an answer,”
Gagnon said.
    They watched as Delores and Cecil Denfield
waltzed about the room. Denfield was a superb dancer. He stood
straight and tall, his left hand holding Delores’s right hand with
a balletic touch, while his right hand rested effortlessly upon her
hip. And yet there was no doubt that they were severely conjoined –
by the insistent, irregular beat of the music and their bodies’
synchronized harmonies. Their gaze was mutual and unwavering.
    The music and the motion of the dancers was
rudely interrupted by the sound of a chair striking the floor,
followed by the shattering of a glass. Beth was the first person on
the scene. Audrey Denfield had fainted and fallen to the floor,
toppling her chair and breaking her champagne glass. She lay in a
tangled heap.
    Beth knelt down, careful to avoid the broken
glass, and raised Audrey’s head. Beth began to fan her, while
others now came up and crowded around. Someone produced a vial of
smelling salts. Beth held it under Audrey’s nose. She coughed and
opened her eyes.
    “Please, clear that glass away,” Beth said.
By this time a servant had arrived and bent down to remove the
glass, which had broken into several large pieces.
    “Are you all right, my darling?” Cecil
Denfield said, making his way through the throng.
    “I – I think so,” Audrey said.
    Beth was moving Audrey’s arms carefully, and
decided that nothing had been broken. “Can you stand?” she
said.
    “I feel very wobbly,” Audrey said. She looked
up at her husband. “Please, take me home, Cecil.”
    Denfield, with Beth’s assistance, got his
wife to her feet.
    “I’ll call for our carriage, darling.”
    “Please do.”
    To the buzzing of the crowd, who were more
than curious about the lady’s motive for fainting, Denfield led his
unsteady wife towards the foyer. By now Humphrey Cardiff and his
daughter had arrived on the scene to offer their condolences.
Audrey did not look pleased to receive them.
    ***
    Marc and his party left the ball about one o’clock.
The dancing, for the young and inexhaustible, would go on for
another hour. Marc and Beth said goodnight to Robert, Louis and
Gagnon, and headed home. A brilliant harvest moon lit up the
storefronts along fashionable King Street.
    “Well, you got through a whole evenin’
without talkin’ politics,” Beth said, leaning against Marc’s
shoulder.
    “Almost,” Marc said. “I must confess that
Gilles and I did discuss the campaign for a minute or two while you
were dancing with Louis.”
    “Shame on you.”
    “But you did enjoy yourself, didn’t you, even
though you were determined not to?”
    “I admit I did.”
    “And so did Mrs. Cardiff-Jones, the merry
widow.”
    Beth laughed. Then she said seriously, “But
that one is trouble, I