“Yeah, it does,” Cordelia said with a touch of awe. She was still struggling to clear her head. The nap-turned-coma had left her out of sorts. She finally allowed herself to meet his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was coming. I would have, you know, changed clothes at least.” She was still in the black, belted dress she’d worn for the funeral, now wrinkled from a full day of sleeping in it.
“She wouldn’t takenofor an answer,” he said. “And after this morning, I felt like I owed you both an apology. I, uh, don’t like being caught in the middle like that.”
Eustace burst into the room carrying a loaf of crusty bread and a brick of butter for the table. She returned with a soup tureen and a salad bowl, and then again with two stoneware casseroles and a cruet of homemade dressing.
Cordelia surveyed the spread before her with wide eyes.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Eustace told her. “It’s rude.” Raising her glass for a toast, she said, “To Aunt Augusta, for saving my ass.”
Gordon gave Cordelia a quizzical look as they clinked glasses.
“To Aunt Augusta,” Cordelia added awkwardly.
“To The White Lady,” Gordon echoed. They were all quiet for a moment before he said, “So, tell us what’s on the menu.”
“Yes, by all means, elucidate,” Cordelia said dryly.
“Well, I whipped up a salad with most of the produce,” Eustace began. “The apples and parsnips I roasted together with some spices. The asparagus I sautéed in lemon. The soup mixes I combined with wild rice. And the bread I baked myself. Oh, and the vinaigrette is a simple garlic balsamic.” Her cheeks were pink with exertion, but she didn’t seem tired in the least. In fact, she was brimming with giddy energy.
“You baked bread?You?”Cordelia asked in disbelief.
“Who else?”
“Am I still sleeping?” Cordelia asked out loud. “Is this a dream?”
Eustace ignored her. “Dig in! I am simply famished.” She began loading up her plate.
Cordelia didn’t understand how Eustace could still be hungry after unburdening the pantry of nearly all its contents. Maybe it was a side effect of nearing the end of her chemo treatments, a signal that she was returning to health. In fact, looking at her now, Cordelia thought Eustace looked better than she had in thelast decade. Her cheeks seemed fuller. Her shoulders rounder. Her lips softer. She knew her sister needed to gain back the weight she’d lost, but even a full day of eating wouldn’t show up that quickly, would it?
She sniffed a crust of bread and took a bite. “Gordon here was just apologizing,” she said with unconcealed sarcasm.
He choked on the wine, setting his glass down quickly.
“For what?” Eustace asked.
“Presumably for barring us from our own property,” Cordelia answered, dipping into the soup, surprised by her bluntness.
“I was only following orders,” he told them.
“Yes,” Eustace said. “I seem to recall you saying you’d been asked to witness our aunt’s final wishes.”
Gordon chewed on an apple slice with a faraway look. “She called Togers and me into the library, where we received separate envelopes. I didn’t get to read what was in his, mind you, just my own, but his was significantly thicker.” He tugged at his collar. “I don’t think either of us expected it.”
“Funny, that,” Cordelia cut in. “Because you told me our aunt didn’t leave her room in the end.”
“She didn’t,” Gordon agreed. “This was not long after I came to work here. Before she became bed-bound.”
Eustace set her wineglass down. “You’re telling me our aunt readied her final wishes almost a year before she died?”
“Notalmost,” Gordon told her after taking another bite. “A year to the day, in fact.”
Cordelia shot Eustace a serious look.
“She was in good health at the time,” he explained. “She couldn’t have known. She just said that Togers, as her legal counsel and trustee, would see to everything, and that no one—she really emphasized that part:no one—should interfere. She trusted him implicitly. This is delicious, by the way,” he said, gesturing to his nearly empty bowl.
Eustace added another ladle of soup to Gordon’s bowl. “What changed?”
He scooped up several mouthfuls of soup, then shrugged. “Nothing for a long while. Then she went from her usual self to being unable to leave her bed practically overnight. She even stopped talking. And then she was gone. It was only a couple of weeks before it was all over.” He looked from Eustace to Cordelia and back to Eustace again. “Togers’ own sister, Diana, came to nurse her,” he said.
