Charlotte was almost ready to go out. One last look in the mirror revealed to her satisfaction a trim, elegant lady of mature years dressed in a tailored skirt suit that fitted her slender form just so. With matching handbag and a wide, matching belt which emphasized the narrowness of her waist. Her shapely toes were thrust into a pair of high heeled pumps with little bows on the instep. Above were (what she had been told by those who had been granted the pleasure of the sight) the greatest pair of sixty-something year-old legs there were to be seen.
She opened the jacket and made a half-pirouette like a model on a runway. She stood for a moment before the mirror with her shoulders back, hands on hips, admiring the effect of the high-necked lace collared silk blouse, and pearl necklace. She stole a glance at the oil portrait on the wall. A stunning likeness it seemed of herself at a but slightly earlier age.
Alas, reality seems always to intrude just when it is least wanted.
"You really do look like her."
The voice was that of Mary Perkins, who had just returned to the room. She and her husband Rodger had been cook, butler, majors domo and just about everything else in the great old Victorian house for some years now. In fact, only shortly after Charles and his lovely, uncannily "twin sister" wife Susan, had taken over possession of the great old family mansion. That Charles had often been Susan, and almost as bizarrely, Susan had sometimes been Charles, was a secret the Perkins had been in on almost from their arrival.
The couple had been engaged on a temporary basis to, replace old Mr. Higgenbothem who had been pensioned off by Charles' father, Arthur, when he had moved to Florida to be with his old golfing and fishing cronies. The house had been turned over to his offspring in the process. Arthur had considerably increased the pipe and wire fortune he had inherited, and keeping more than enough to live on very comfortably had handed the rest over to Charles.
Charles was not the financier of the previous two generations, but through good advice, natural restraint and caution, he had added his resources despite a respectable amount of philanthropy.
The Perkins, in all innocence, thinking the house empty, had one afternoon, come barging into the master bedroom with arm loads of heavy winter blankets to be put away. Instead of putting the linen into the large mahogany press in that room, they found the master and mistress of the house well along in the process of exchanging identities. Far from running away in a snit to tell everyone in town, they had been genuinely fascinated and amused by what they had found. They were also quite determined to keep the secret better than Charles and Susan seemed to be able to. So the Perkins had found themselves a lifelong situation.
Mrs. Perkins remark, however, got Charles thinking about the recent past. With a sigh, he scanned the group of pictures on the wall. Several photographs of children and grandchildren and an oil painting. The latter was one of his late wife. From the time of her illness three years ago, he had lost all desire to indulge in the masquerade that had been a consuming passion for him as long as he could remember.
He had long thought the occasion of his meeting with Susan at college to be the most fortunate hour of his life. They were attracted to one another at once. When things became very serious, he confessed his weakness to her. To his inexpressible delight, it didn't seem to bother her at all./ Total perfection was accomplished when in a drama club farce, they had been costumed as each other. The effect was incredible. the likenesses were so exact as to almost defeat the purpose. With only a little padding in the expected places, they wore each others' clothes and they fit perfectly When she confessed that she actually preferred him this way, especially when she was in male attire, his world was complete, and stayed that way for many years.
Her death had been a blow that had nearly killed him, too. But it was more than three years later. He was still alive and even beginning to recover. He was not sure whether the return of the urge to crossdress was, at this stage of things, a gift or a burden.
It was eerie to realize that as he grew older, he had but to look in the mirror, while made up and appropriately dressed and there would be her image at the same age. And often, as right then, in the midst of the pleasure, would come a sharp reminder of how much of his two worlds she had been for him.
Susan's was a disease but scantily described in the medical literature, and so rare as to have occasioned no charity. or group seeking funds for research, and no cure or even treatment for the symptoms. She had simply wasted away, prostrate, exhausted, yet mentally alert, becoming thinner and more pale, more frail all the time. Like a Beardsley rendering of a character from Poe.
When she grew too weak to climb stairs they had made her sickroom in the main grand salon just behind the double sliding doors at the rear of the formal entrance and their hall. First a sickbed, then all the alarming machines and tubes attendant on serious illness invaded the room.
The ornate carved velvet couch was brought beside her bed, and someone - Charles or one of the Perkins, or God bless'm, his grandson or granddaughter-in-low, slept there every night so that Susan would not be alone. Though protected by a sheet, the couch nonetheless became worn and shabby, as did the whole room.
As Susan's health failed, his granddaughter, fortunately a nurse by profession, had been increasingly the keeper of ail that hateful rented paraphernalia that kept the patient clinging to life. Then there was one last ride to the hospital and she did not return. Mercifully, the sickbed and all the rest, disappeared the very next day. Charles didn't care how, and the furniture was restored to its original arrangement somewhat.
He hod only been back in that room but once or twice since. The heavy velvet drapes had been drawn across the great palladian window. The china and porcelain had been in boxes under the table. The pier glass was smudged and dirty. Dust and cobwebs everywhere.
The condition of that place had once been Mrs. Perkins pride and joy. She was one ferocious house keeper, as any 'cleaning lady' hired by the day to help would attest. But, the dusting of the special treasures in that room had been a task she delegated to no one. Now she could not bring herself to go in there and Charles, for one, was not about to complain.
Surely everyone in the household felt as he did, awoke sometimes, late at night, a vast, dark. empty silence in the very heart of the great house, bereft of the light that had illuminated it, however wanly. yet dreading to violate its heavy stillness.
Charlotte, or rather Charles, could feel a melancholy mood growing yet more somber, but he willed himself to fight it off. As Charlotte again, she said in her best feminine voice, with only a trace of a lump in her throat, "There. I was about to go wallowing in the black pit again. But I won't, it's always there. I can sink into it any time I wish besides. she wouldn't want me to tonight."
For Charles, or rather Charlotte. was about to be off to her bridge club for only the third time this year. Mrs. Perkins was acting as ladies maid. Had she thought of it. she was motivated, mostly by a desire to see 'Charlotte' turned out as well as Susan would have wanted. Meanwhile, Mr. Perkins was making sure the grandchildren were safely ensconced in their quarters for the evening, and outside the coast was clear generally.
What Charles really didn't want was any, repetition of the uproar that had occurred three weeks ago. Charlotte was coming home via the main entrance. The light from the street lamps along the road was just enough to see by. The grandchildren lived on the other side of the house, and Charles usually parked his car near the front door, across the drive, under a gazebo like structure erected to shelter an open limousine of many years past.
Charlotte was in the middle of the drive when a car pulled into the entrance to turn around. It was not just any car, but the very vehicle of Mrs. Johnson. number one local busybody, gossip columnist of the county weekly, and worse yet, possessor of a crystal ball, Ouija boards and such, and a firm believer in ghosts, demons, and extraterrestrials. No wonder that her late husband, the dignified president of the local bank, had left his estate in spendthrift trust. That way, she could not squander the income on damn foolishness.
There stood Charlotte, frozen in the headlights. The driver's door popped open, a head came out, and the gurgling gasp that followed left Charlotte with no doubt as to what, and who, that infernal nuisance thought she had seen. With a scream of spinning tires Mrs. Johnson backed out onto the road. There was an additional grinding screech of air brakes punctuated by an oath that revealed she had almost been run into by the late bus from the city. Not at all nonplused, Mrs. Johnson, whose driving was also notorious, passed the lumbering bus on the right by going through Tom Potter's service station. and roared on up the road, festooned with the lengths of reflective tape he had strung across the entrance. at closing to prevent just that sort of thing.
Charlotte realized that his only hope for a peaceful conclusion to the evening depended on whether or not the bingo game had let out at the Fire Hall, If it hadn't, he was going to, have company, lots of it, and soon. She ran inside and up the stairs, no small feat at her age and in the high heels she always affected as Charlotte.
She had to get the outer clothes changed, the make-up and false nails off and quick! She hoped that just this time, that women's gaggle of goofy followers would use such wits as they possessed, and agree that Mrs. Johnson had cried wolf too often. Fat chance!
Flying saucer landings, ghosts, witches and such were seen by Mrs. Johnson only, of course. Then she would get that whole rabble of women to go out to the spot. That they never found any evidence of such things never dampened their enthusiasm. And, unfortunately, most them could be counted on to be in the bingo game at the Fire Hall.
Well, they had been at the bingo game! And now they were on Charles' front lawn! Charles went out, and decided to take the offensive . The belief in his unfailing good nature was so well established, and so correct, most of the time that few of his neighbors had ever felt the heat of his aristocratic wrath. They did this time. He was mad! The fools were parked all over the lawn, and tramping in the flower beds. Mr. Perkins would be furious!
Crestfallen, they departed. All but Mrs. Johnson. She was determined she was going to go right into the house and conduct a seance right in the grand salon, on the dining table probably. Charles longed to scrape her off on Mrs. Perkins and gave a look at the bell pull located on the back of the door. he stopped when he saw what was sitting on the chair beside the door.
There, Charlotte, in her haste, had deposited her handbag and coat. That had made it a good thing the grandkids were out. It wouldn't have done to have hod them come through the house to the front door, open it before the crowd, and innocently ask whose those things were. Even people as obtuse as this assembly of village idiots just might add up two and two and get four.
Mrs. Johnson left at last, bewailing the waste of so good on opportunity to communicate with a spirit who so obviously had a message for the living. The 'ghost' had a message all right, but this one prided himself on being at once both a lady and gentleman, and it would have been unprintable.
Charles did not sleep well that night, and was in a bad mood all the next day. Nor was his temper improved when he was handed the bill from the lawn company the following afternoon.
Well, none of that this time. At least not on the way out. Charlotte sowed a small suitcase in the trunk of her car, for she was going to spend the night with a couple that he and Susan had known for years. Tomorrow, Charles would have to leave the house about nine-thirty or so, dressed in his Sunday best. His hosts were coming to the meeting, and of course, their skirt and slacks would be on what most people would consider to be the wrong people.
Charlotte, as always, drove very carefully to the meeting. It would be expected of the sort of person she represented, and besides it wouldn't do to get a traffic ticket and have to present Charles' driver's license.
The meeting was on the upper floor of a trendy hair salon. If one's hair was not amenable to styling the owner's also operated a wig boutique right next door. Very handy for "ladies' like some of Charlotte's friends, who had little of their own.
Specialty shops filled the rest of the little row, the facades of which made a single architectural composition in a collegiate gothic sty!e which matched the buildings on the other three sides of an open square. Across the square the clock in the tower of the train station announced the hour to be eight, with deep sonorous notes, befitting the pompous dignity of what had been one of the most prosperous railroads in the nation a generation before.
The impoverished public transit agency that was the current owner, needing only the ticket office, had rented the waiting room out to the proprietor of a 'fern bar,' and from it, there now emanated a gentle tinkle of glasses and other sounds of polite merry-making.
Charles knew the owners of at least three of the cars parked on that side of the square, and he did not need them to see someone in female attire get out of his .
She drove around the corner, and up the alley, to park in back of the hair salon. At the top of the stairs was the meeting place, an inspection of which gave a hint to the fact that the whole attic of the row of stores was divided into three elegant meeting halls, suitable, even, for guilds of goldsmiths.
The large one in the center would really have done for a ducal court. The now defunct Royal Knights of something or other had met there, though it was now full of o!d disused displays and empty boxes.
However, the stairs Charlotte took led her to the room on the right. As she arrived, she found several others already there, arranging the tables, and setting out a light buffet. The Tiffany lamps were lit along the side illuminating the golden oak of the paneling of the walls, sloping ceiling and richly carved hammer beams.
A short business meeting was soon over. Charlotte took the minutes because the secretary had been unable to make the meeting due to an unexpected plague of relatives. There followed a pleasant interlude of card playing and polite conversation.
During this time, as at any polite ladies function, the contents of the buffet table managed to disappear down to the last crumb. But without anyone having staged a major attack, or being seen going away with a heaping platter-full as would happen at most men's clubs. Finally, it was time to leave. Charlotte now had no plans for the evening, and was not at all tired. She decided to go off with those who were going down to the ferry landing.
The double-ended paddle ferry, General Augustus Guffogg, had by now spent more time propped up on shore being a restaurant and night club, than it ever had puffing and splashing across the river. Under its present management as Janus, it featured the best fish house in the area, as well as being known as he area's principal gay drag bar.
It offered liquid refreshment such as to make gay guys and gals gayer and to set the boys in dresses wigs askew. All sorts of exotic folk, who would have had to travel long distances to be with their own kind, went there and mingled together.
It was Saturday night. When Charlotte and her friends arrived, the old boat was packed to the gunwales, and rocking on its cradle. Three very active hours later, Charlotte was ready to call it quits, very aware of several reasons why people her age rarely closed up a disco. If the other members of the Church committee could have seen her dance though, they would probably have lost their false teeth.
Back home at last, Charlotte was very cautious and quiet about entering the house. It was, after all, past three in the morning. She eased the great front door closed so as not to make a sound and was about to set off across the hall to the stairs when she noticed a most unusual thing.
The sliding doors to the grand salon were opened just a crack. In that room there was a light which sent a small sliver of illumination shimmering across the polished floor of the entrance hall. Charlotte, careful to make no sound with her heels on the hardwood floor, moved slowly to the partly open door to investigate.
To her astonishment, the place was spotless. The wood and brass were gleaming; and all the treasures were sparkling in their places on the glass shelves. The drapes at the rear window were still drawn, but the hearth had been cleared of the clutter that had taken up residence there. Instead, as it should, it contained a small cheerful fire.
Her attention was quickly drawn to the two young women in the room, illuminated by the fire light and two candelabra. One of them was seated in a large winged armchair wearing a floor length shining silver gown. Her hair glowed down over one shoulder nearly to her waist, except for the strands gathered into a long braid which circled her head supporting a rhinestone tiara. All in all, she looked to be a princess out of a Hans Christian Andersen story.
Charlotte was suddenly aware of what a beautiful young woman his granddaughter was, for this was she. The rhinestones looked out of p!ace on her. In his safe deposit box was a real tiara, with real diamonds, one of several such things Charlotte had kept away from the girl's grasping mother-in-law. She would have it now, as soon as Charlotte could arrange.
The other person in the room was attired in a manner that would be considered strange and anachronistic to most people. But not to Charlotte, not I suspect, dear reader, to you either. She was uniformed as a serving maid in tight black top with a white !ace collar, and exaggerated short puff sleeves trimmed with white lace. Perched atop a page-boy hairdo was a small lacy maid's hat. A short flared miniskirt was held up and out by a cloud of net petticoats.
She had on a white lace double apron. The latter was apparent even though the girl's back was to the door. Her long legs in black hose and black patent high heels were quite striking. They were visible for their full length because she was bending down to pick up something from a low table beyond the fire. This also caused her lace covered unmentionables to be exposed to
Charlotte knew at once who it had to be. Even from the back, in the wig and outfit, it was her grandson. Charlotte could contain herself no longer. She forced open the sliding doors and strode into the room through the now wide open portal.
The effect of this entry on the pair in the room was electric. The 'princess' in the wing chair sat bolt upright, wide-eyed, frozen in position. The serving maid, hearing a sound turned on her heels. She stood stock still for a second. Then her eyes rolled upward. the sliver coffee service on its tray slipped from her nerveless fingers to crash disastrously on the hearth. With a frightened murmur of "Grandmother!", she swooned away in a dead faint on the hearth rug.
Because this was no sylph of a girl, but rather a well-knit, wiry young man of twenty-five years or so, the thud was such as to shiver some of the timbers of even that great house, and caused the china clock on the mantle to emit a small muffled bong, its first public utterance in more than two years.
For a moment their reaction left Charlotte as thunderstruck as they. Then in a flash it came to her what was going on. Also,just then, her granddaughter did something, that endeared her to Charlotte forever. Disregarding the awful implications of the apparition before her, she ran at once to the side of her prostrate petticoated husband. Charlotte went over also.
"Don't be afraid. it's me - Grandfather!" said Charlotte. "Here, I think those smelling salts we had for Grandmother are still in the drawer in the table. No, wait, she's coming around. Let's get her up on the couch. "
"But, Grandfather, what? Why?"
"Well," said Charlotte, "surely by the evidence I find here, you know as much about my reasons as would any woman anywhere."
The serving maid suddenly revived, piped up, "Can we call you Grandmother?''
"No," said Charlotte thoughtfully. "Call me Aunt Charlotte, that would be better."
"Well, I though you folks would find each other sooner or later," said Mrs. Perkins as she entered the room.
"We heard a noise and came to take a look," said Mr. Perkins as he deftly removed the cartridges from a large and ominous looking pistol. He stashed it in the belt of his night robe. In his carpet slippers with an old fashioned sleeping cap on his head, and his usually natty mustache uncombed, it made him look rather like a jovial Barbary pirate.
"Doesn't our little maid look fetching in her outfit," said Mrs. Perkins. "And they asked us not to tell on them when we found out about them by accident, also. We thought we would let nature take its course, and it did. But, I swear, you folks take some looking after or you'd be the scandal of the county!"
"Well ," said Charlotte, "this is my happiest moment for the past several years. I may have many things, but the chiefest of my treasures are in this room right now, save one, and I almost feel that she is with us also. I know the hour is late, but would you all stay for just a little while for a small celebration? I have a small bottle of special wine laid down for a very special occasion, and I felt sure it would spoil unopened.
"Properly, our serving wench should go and fetch it, but she is a bit green yet under her rouge. I know right where to go. I will be back in a minute, and then we shall have, I think, a very pleasant conversation 'till the sun rises. And if we are missed in church tomorrow, I think we can be forgiven!"
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