Cruel as the Grave Read Online Free

Maggie’s voice as she moved to his side and grabbed his arm roused Gerard from his curious state. “What’s wrong?” she repeated urgently.
    Wiping a shaky hand across his forehead, he brusquely assured the two women that he felt a little queasy. “Probably that wretched tomato juice I had on the plane,” he muttered. “It didn’t taste right.”
    Maggie didn’t believe him and was about to say so, when a strident voice assailed them: “Helena! Don’t stand there like a fool, girl—bring them on into the drawing room!”
    Maggie turned her head in the direction of the voice but caught only a quick glimpse of a rigid back and a mass of stiffly-sprayed gray hair as the owner of the voice moved out of sight into a room to their left.
    Helena blushed and motioned for Gerard and Maggie to follow her as she moved immediately to do the voice’s bidding.
    Through the open door of the drawing room, Maggie saw several heads turned expectantly toward them. The voice belonged to a tall, elderly woman who stood in the center of the room. Dressed in immaculate lilac silk, her resemblance to Helena was striking, but she had to be at least fifteen years older. Her hair was cut in a style similar to Helena’s, but the effect was rather ruined by the fact that every hair had been threatened into place by excessive application of hair spray. Fascinated, Maggie watched for the hair to move, but every time the woman tossed her head—which she did at irregular intervals—not a hair stirred.
    Neither of the other two people in the room, an elderly man and a woman only a few years older than Maggie, had said anything, waiting, it seemed, for the holder of center stage to make the first move. Helena waited nervously beside Gerard and Maggie. Gerard, apparently calm once more, waited also.
    Maggie was tempted to say something, anything, just to break the silence, but as she opened her mouth to speak, the woman—who Maggie had decided by now must be Helena’s older sister, Henrietta—laughed harshly. “I hope you weren’t expecting the fatted calf, Gerard,” she said, the venom in her voice making Maggie flinch.
    “No,” he responded, eyeing her insultingly. “One raddled old cow is quite sufficient, thank you.”
    There was no mistaking whom he meant, and for a moment Maggie held her breath, expecting the worst. Instead, Henrietta laughed. “At least you didn’t go soft, teaching poetry all these years. I'm glad to see you haven’t lost your waspish tongue.”
    “I certainly had a good role model.” Gerard smiled as he moved forward to hug her.
    Helena giggled nervously, then urged a speechless Maggie forward. “Maggie, my dear, this is my elder sister, Henrietta McLendon Butler.” Helena made the introduction tartly, getting a little of her own back with emphasis on the word elder, Maggie was amused to note.
    “But everyone just calls me Retty,” responded the elder sister with a flash of the eyes at Helena. She put her head to one side and subjected Maggie to a searching gaze. “No need to tell me who you are! Magnolia to the life!” She swept Maggie into a fierce embrace, surprisingly strong from someone nearly eighty.
    Once Retty had released her, Maggie stepped back and began to mutter some incoherent words of greeting, but Retty had already turned to motion her two companions forward. “This is Harold,” Retty said, “my brother.”
    Harold, though he obviously found it difficult to take his eyes from Maggie’s face, gave Gerard a big hug, then moved to Maggie, tears forming in his eyes. “You are so like her,” he whispered as he bent to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek.
    “Like my grandmother, you mean?” Maggie said, her tone more waspish than she intended. “I wouldn’t know.”
    Harold drew back in surprise, his face clouded by dismay. Gerard, engaging in more verbal fencing with his aunt Retty, hadn’t heard. Maggie wanted to poke her father in the ribs to get his attention. She felt