unaware of both conditions until Travis reached out from his chair to put one
hand consolingly upon her shoulder. She fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief.
“I’m sorry.”
“Dear lady,” Garrison said, “don’t apologize for breaking through that iron
shell you’ve been in all your life. This is the first time I’ve seen you show a
strong emotion, the first time I’ve seen you in any condition other than extreme
shyness, and it’s lovely to behold.” Turning to Travis, giving Nora time to blot
her eyes, he said, “What more did you hope to hear me say?”
“There are some things Nora doesn’t know, things she ought to know and that I
don’t believe would violate even your strict code of client privilege if you
were to divulge them.”
“Such as?”
Travis said, “Violet Devon never worked yet lived reasonably well, never in
want, and she left enough funds to keep Nora pretty much for the rest of her
life, at least as long as Nora stays in that house and lives like a recluse.
Where did her money come from?”
“Come from?” Garrison sounded surprised. “Nora knows that, surely.”
“But she doesn’t,” Travis said.
Nora looked up and saw Garrison Dilworth staring at her in astonishment. He
blinked and said, “Violet’s husband was moderately well-to-do. He died quite
young, and she inherited everything.”
Nora gaped at him and could barely find sufficient breath to speak. “Husband?”
“George Olmstead,” the attorney said.
“I’ve never heard that name.”
Garrison blinked rapidly again, as if sand had blown in his face. “She never
mentioned a husband?”
“Never.”
“But didn’t a neighbor ever mention—”
“We had nothing to do with our neighbors,” Nora said. “Violet didn’t approve of
them.”
“And in fact,” Garrison said, “now that I think about it, there might have been
new neighbors on both sides by the time you came to live with Violet.”
Nora blew her nose and put away her handkerchief. She was still trembling. Her
sudden sense of release from bondage had generated powerful emotions, but now
they subsided somewhat to make room for curiosity.
“All right?” Travis asked.
She nodded, then stared hard at him and said, “You knew, didn’t you? About the
husband, I mean. That’s why you brought me here.”
“I suspected,” Travis said. “If she’d inherited everything from her parents, she
would have mentioned it. The fact that she didn’t talk about where the money
came from . . . well, it seemed to me to leave only one possibility— a husband,
and very likely a husband with whom she’d had troubles. Which made even more
sense when you think about how down she was on people in general and on men in
particular.”
The attorney was so dismayed and agitated that he could not sit still. He got up
and paced past an enormous antique globe that was lighted from within and seemed
made of parchment. “I’m flabbergasted. So you never really understood why she
was bitterly misanthropic, why she suspected everyone of having her worst
interests at heart?”
“No,” Nora said. “I didn’t need to know why, I guess. It was just the way she
was.”
Still pacing, Garrison said, “Yes. That’s true. I’m convinced she was a
borderline paranoid even in her youth. And then, when she discovered that George
had betrayed her with other women, the switch clicked all the way over in her.
She got much worse after that.”
Travis said, “Why did Violet still use her maiden name, Devon, if she’d been
married to Olmstead?”
“She didn’t want his name any more. Loathed the name. She sent him packing, very
nearly drove him out of the house with a stick! She was about to divorce him
when he died,” Garrison said. “She had learned about his affairs with other
women, as I’ve said. She was furious. Ashamed and enraged. I must say. . . I
can’t entirely blame poor George because I don’t think he,
found much love and affection at home. He knew the marriage was a mistake within
a month of the wedding.”
Garrison paused beside the globe, one hand resting lightly on top of the world,
staring far into the past. Ordinarily, he did not look his age. Now, as he gazed