Read Online The Body in the Kelp by Katherine Hall Page - Free Book Online

labels, it was easy to stick them on. A group of rusticators sat on sturdy canvas folding stools not far away with grandmother’s fitted wicker picnic basket, “the one we always take to auctions,” filled with egg-salad and watercress sandwiches, the thermoses with fresh-minted iced tea at their feet. Some of the women were knitting Fair Isle sweaters, and the men strolled purposefully down to the water to check the tide from time to time. The new people had the equipment, but their baskets lacked the patina and validation of old age. The local people were eating the hot dogs being sold, and most of the artistic group had gone home after noting Matilda’s taste—a Wallace Nutting or two, Granville Fuel Oil calendars—and searching fruitlessly in the boxes from the attic for a Hiroshige.
    There was a large number of day visitors too—dealers from up and down the coast and summer people of both varieties from the mainland. Pix had spoken in a disparaging way about them—people who needed a movie theater within twenty miles.
    The next couple of hours went by quickly. It got hotter under the tent, but it was worse outside in the sunshine. They ate their sandwiches and drank the lemonade. Pix had to supplement her lunch with one of the hot dogs after she smelled the one the person next to her had, heaped with sauerkraut.
    â€œIt goes with an auction,” she told Faith, who refused.
    â€œFunny, I don’t remember seeing them at Christie’s,” Faith remarked, and Pix jabbed her.
    â€œWhen in Rome, Faith …”
    â€œI know, I know. If they were selling clam rolls I might be interested, but hot dogs, no, not even for you and Sanpere.”
    Pix was the successful bidder on a mixed lot of Heisey glass and almost got a repulsive Roseville jardiniere and pedestal.
After that episode Faith asked her if it was permissible to overturn her chair if she bid on something hideous.
    â€œFaith, Roseville is highly collectible, and besides it would have looked beautiful with that asparagus fern I have. I thought you liked that period.”
    Before Faith could reply that there was such a thing as selectivity, their attention was drawn away by another quilt, and again it went high. Some had been sold for lower, even bargain bids, but they did not appeal to Faith. She wanted a very special one for their bed in Aleford. The parsonage was in constant danger of slipping into New England country, and she had met the threat by bringing in modern pieces of her own; so far they coexisted happily. She thought she could safely add a quilt without fear of heart-shaped baskets, wreaths, stenciled herds of cows, and pigs in all forms following.
    â€œFaith,” Pix whispered excitedly, “the weather vane is next.”
    It had been a relatively calm auction with only one minor altercation, when a lady wearing red heart-shaped sunglasses who was definitely not Lolita claimed she, and not the couple in front of her, had been the high bidder on a Limoges fish service. The auctioneer had backed up and started the bidding again. She got the fish service and left. The young couple found solace in a Nipon dessert set.
    Now the crowd under the tent grew still, and people who had wandered off to the shade under the big oak trees came to stand on the sidelines.
    Eric and Roger had been sitting in the front row, with the Prescotts filling in the chairs to either side and the rear. It was like a wedding where the bride or groom had only two friends. Eric’s arms were folded across his chest, and Roger’s eyes assumed a steely glint quite unlike their everyday softness. Faith saw Jill standing to one side of the auction worker’s table. She must have closed the store. Eric saw her too and raised a hand in greeting. Jill smiled encouragingly.
    Walter had taken over for a while, but now Stanley Gardiner returned, took the microphone, and placed it around his neck.
Walter moved to the side, his