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The woman cautiously rose to her feet, looked around again, laid down her needlepoint, and headed for the front hall.
"I swear she looked right at me a minute ago," I said to Kristof.
I hurried after her, with Kristof at my heels. In the hall, the woman stopped and latched the inner bolt. Then she turned and climbed the stairs.
"You!" I called after her. "Hold on!"
She didn't pause. At the top, she walked across the hall and through an open bedroom door where Abby was making the bed. A man's trousers hung over a chair, and shaving implements littered the bureau, next to a wash-basin filled with scum-and-whisker-coated water. On the floor was an open suitcase.
"Make yourself useful and dump that water, Lizzie," Abby said.
The younger woman--Lizzie--didn't move. "I heard Uncle John talking to Father last night."
"Eavesdropping?" Abby said.
"I hear Father is going to change his will."
"That's his business. Not yours."
Lizzie circled the bed, staying across the room from Abby. "But it is my business, isn't it? You don't think Emma and I know what you're doing? First persuading Father to let your sister stay in the house on Fourth Street, then persuading him to transfer ownership of that house to you, and now a new will."
"I don't know anything about a new will," Abby said.
Lizzie crossed the room and looked out the front window, turning her back on the woman I assumed was her stepmother. "So there is no new will?"
"No, there isn't. If your father has written one, he would have told me."
Lizzie nodded. She walked to the bureau and picked up the water basin. A few moments later, she returned the empty basin to the guest room. Then, without a word to her stepmother, she headed for a bedroom farther down.
Downstairs, the side door banged again. I looked toward Lizzie's bedroom, but whatever fire seemed to have been starting up here had sputtered out. Better check out the situation below.
We found Bridget back in the parlor, washing the side windows now. From upstairs came the sound of footsteps. Then a few muffled exchanges. Bridget paused her cleaning and looked toward the dining room, as if the voices came from in there.
"At least they're talking again," she murmured.
She hoisted the pail of wash water and headed through the sitting room and around to the side door. I trailed her outside and watched her dump the water over her puddle of vomit. Then she walked to a pump and refilled the bucket.
"Pumping your own water?" I said. "Thank God I was born in the twentieth century."
Kristof shrugged. "A hundred years from now people will probably be amazed that we cooked our own meals."
I jerked my chin at the house. "They'd be amazed that we cooked our own meals, too."
When we got back inside, someone was banging at the front door. Bridget hurried to answer it. She grabbed the door to pull it open and nearly fell over backward when it didn't budge. She grabbed it again and twisted.
"Bolted?" she murmured, reaching for the lock. "In the middle of the day?"
The banging grew louder. Bridget fumbled with the lock. The moment she got it undone, the door flew open and she toppled backward to the floor. A laugh floated down the stairs.
"That was quite a pratfall,"
Lizzie called from the top.
Andrew strode inside and handed Bridget his hat. Clutching a white parcel beneath his arm, he marched into the sitting room and took a key from on top of the mantel. As Lizzie watched him, she fixed a hook that had come unfastened on her dress.
"Back so soon, Father?" she said.
He grunted something about not feeling well, then walked through the kitchen to the side foyer. Instead of heading out the door, he climbed the rear steps. I followed. At the top of the stairs was a landing with a single door, then more steps leading to the attic level. Andrew unlocked the door and went into what was obviously his bedroom. After dropping off the parcel, he locked the door behind him and headed downstairs.
