“How am I supposed to act? I never learned how to bow and scrape to the ladies like Ath. He comes from an educated family. My old man was a carpenter, till he got so stove up with rheumatism that he couldn’t work any more.”
“Then you should be proud of him! My father’s never done an honest day’s labor in his life. I can’t help being who I am, any more than you can. You don’t have to like me—”
“I never said I don’t like you!”
“Well, you certainly give that impression.”
“Oh, for cripes’ sake! I’m six weeks behind with one job and about to get bolluxed up on another. I’m trying to line up a third, but nobody will give me five minutes’ peace to finish the presentation sketches. I need three good assistants, but I’m stuck out here where I can’t get anybody to come. And when I finally get hold of a typewriter who’s worth her salt, she expects me to go tippytoeing around her like one of those bogus Eye-talian counts.”
“If you’re trying to get at me about my mother’s latest marriage,” Lavinia replied icily, “I can only say I believe the title to be genuine, but I’m in no position to know, nor do I care. Will you check these job sheets while I eat this excellent and entirely suitable lunch?”
Clinton stared at her for a moment, then began to chuckle. “Okay, Your Highness. Let’s see what you’ve done.”
Head to head, they pored over the lined pages. He commented on the clearness of her handwriting, pointed out a few things that had to be changed through no fault of hers, as he was careful to explain, then shoved back his chair and reached for his cap.
“I suppose I’d better get back there before Ath has a nervous breakdown. Got plenty to keep you busy?”
“More than plenty.”
She still had several folders to work through, then the whole wretched lot to add up. “Will you be back this afternoon?”
“I expect so, sooner or later. Probably later than sooner. If nobody’s here by half-past five, you’d better lock the door and shoot along. Can’t have you missing your tea and crumpets.”
His tone was mocking, but his smile was friendly at last. Lavinia felt things had been accomplished in more ways than one. She enjoyed the last bite of that vulgar, thick wedge of pie and stuck Zilpha’s tray out in the tiny entryway where she wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded of what it represented. There was a washroom out there, she discovered, with real indoor plumbing and running water, luxuries she hadn’t expected. Old Man Jenks hadn’t been a back number in that respect, at any rate.
Refreshed and restored, she picked up her steel pen. By half-past three, every folder was emptied, every figure entered.
“Oh, dear,” she wailed aloud, “now I have to do the totals.”
She couldn’t just wade into a task like that. Furthermore, her spine seemed to be coming apart at about the fourteenth vertebra because she’d been bending over the desk for so long. Perhaps a breath of fresh air might stimulate her brain for the ordeal ahead.
She opened the shop door and stepped out into the turnaround. Up here, she couldn’t see down into the Hollow because the shrubbery blocked the view. There was nothing much to look at except the dirt road and Mrs. Smith’s dilapidated house across the way. The jewel must be down working for Zilpha. Peter was in the dooryard, endlessly passing his bladeless scythe over the yellow-green grass. What a pity that boundless energy couldn’t be put to some constructive use?
All at once, Lavinia had an inspiration. “Peter,” she called, “Peter, come over here.”
At first the boy couldn’t seem to figure out where the sound was coming from. At last he put down his scythe handle and shambled across the road.
“You called me.”
“Yes, I did. Would you like to play a game with me?”
Peter didn’t appear to understand what she meant, but he followed her into the drafting room willingly enough.
“Now,” said Lavinia, “I’m going to read you some figures, and you can tell me what they add up to.”
“I can add. I can do times. I can do takeaways.”
“I know you can, Peter. You’re a very clever boy. But I just want you to add. Ready?”
She started to read the first column. Peter had the answer on the tip of his tongue by the time she finished. They had a lovely time, Lavinia reading off numbers, Peter shouting out the totals, reveling in his chance to show off. They were down to the last four sheets when disaster struck. Into the drafting room stalked Mrs. Smith, tight-lipped eyes blazing fire.
“Peter, you get out of here!”
“But he’s being no trouble,” Lavinia tried to explain. “I invited him to come. He’s been helping me do sums.”
“When those two bandits need help they can get it somewhere else. You march yourself over home, Peter Smith, and don’t you ever let me catch you in this place again.”
The furious woman turned her back on Lavinia’s stammered protests and herded the sobbing hulk of a child back to his own side of the road.
“Of all the unjust, cruel things!”
Furious herself, guilty at having gotten Peter into trouble, Lavinia tried to concentrate on the sums that still needed to be done, but couldn’t. Why was Mrs. Smith so totally unreasonable? Peter was having fun. Lavinia had been intending to give him some reward for helping her. What was so terrible about letting him into the drafting room? She was still brooding over the unfortunate incident when the two architects returned.
“How are you making out, Lavinia?” Roland asked.
“I was doing fine,” she replied dolefully, “until Mrs. Smith came along.”
“Mrs. Smith? Whatever was she doing here?”
Lavinia blushed. “You see,” she began, “I ought to have confessed to you gentlemen that I’m a total dunce at doing sums. I knew I could never add up these job sheets properly, so I got Peter to help me.”
“You—got—Peter—to—help—you,” said Hayward Clinton in a curiously expressionless voice.
“Why, yes, of course. You must know that peculiar ability of his for ciphering in his head. I was reading off the figures, and he was giving me the answers. We’d almost finished when his mother charged in like a she-bear after her cub and snatched him away, bawling his head off. Could you please tell me what I did wrong?”
Clinton couldn’t. He had collapsed into a chair and seemed to be having a fit of hysterics. Athelney didn’t think it was so funny.
“Well, you see, Lavinia,” he began awkwardly, “Mrs. Smith doesn’t like Hay and me much. She’d been thinking all along that she was going to inherit the business along with the property, and when she found out her uncle had willed it to us—”
“She went straight through the roof,” chortled his partner. “She called us crooks and swindlers and said she hoped we both choked on our own villainy and she wouldn’t lift a finger to save either one of us if we were drowning in a rotten cesspool. She said quite a lot more, but that ought to give you the general drift. And since then she’s tried to make believe we don’t exist.”
“But how was I supposed to know all that? I’ve only been here since day before yesterday.”
“Didn’t your aunts—”
“They are not my aunts! Zilpha is my father’s cousin, and Tetsy Mull is so distantly related it doesn’t count. No, of course they didn’t tell me. Do you think I’d be mean enough to bring that poor child in here if I’d known I was going to cause trouble?”
Hayward Clinton wiped his eyes and became grave. “Lavinia,” he said solemnly, “there’s something else nobody thought to tell you.”
“Then please do,” she snapped. “I seem to have a great deal to learn.”
He led her over to a smaller desk and took the cover off what she’d assumed was a spare typewriting machine.
“This, Lavinia, is our adding machine. You poke these keys and twiddle this little whatsit, and the answer comes out on this piece of paper. It doesn’t work as fast as Peter Smith, but I think you might find it less tro
uble in the long run.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zilpha settled her rose taffeta skirts, unfolded her damask napkin and picked up her heavy silver soup spoon. “Well, Lavvy, tell us about your day.”
“It was an interesting experience,” her ward began cautiously.
“But not one you’d care to repeat, I’ll wager.”
“As a matter of fact, Zilpha, I did rather promise to go again tomorrow. They’re in such a dreadful pickle up there, and—and Roland was so terribly grateful for what little I did today,” Lavinia added with demurely downcast eyes.
Tetsy shrugged. “Why not? After all, you may not get another chance.”
“They do want to move the office as soon as possible,” Lavinia agreed, knowing perfectly well that wasn’t what Miss Mull meant. “It’s such a problem to get help out here. Oh, and speaking of help, I must confess that I rather put my foot in it this afternoon. I invited Peter Smith into the shop,” she was not about to explain why, “and his mother got furious with me. She didn’t say why, but Roland explained afterward that she thinks they tricked her out of inheriting the business along with the house. Did you know that?”
Miss Tabard shrugged. “One can hardly know all the local gossip. Do bear in mind, Lavvy, that we’ve only dealt with the Jenks family in what might be called a business way.”
“That was plenty,” growled Tetsy. “When I think of how that old beast shouted at you—”
“Now, Tetsy, don’t you go shouting, too. We did agree that Jenks must have grown hard of hearing.”
He’d probably grown sick and tired of Zilpha’s hectoring, Lavinia thought. Since the subject had been opened, she pushed it farther.
“What was he bellowing about?”
“Dearest,” said her guardian wearily, “we’ve just explained that the man was deaf.”
“Yes, Zilpha. I’ve been wondering what happened to Mr. Smith. Did he die, or just fade away like the uncle?”
Tetsy perked up. “Good question. Rumor hath it that Smith has decamped. He’s alleged to have taken every cent his wife got out of the estate and fled to the hills with a—”
Miss Tabard coughed ever so slightly, and Miss Mull’s mouth snapped shut.
“With whom?” Lavinia prodded. “I don’t mean to be tiresome, but I ought to know the basic facts if I’m not to cause any further embarrassment.”
“We don’t know who the person was, dear,” said her guardian gently.
“Oh, no! You mean a—a fast woman? Leaving his wife with no money and that big boy to support? Poor woman, no wonder she’s bitter about not getting hold of the business. At least the husband couldn’t have carried that away with him.”
Tetsy emitted a grudging chuckle. “You do come up with a good one occasionally, Lav. One does see her point. Still, it would have been a dashed shame for Roland to lose his firm after the way he’s slaved to keep it going.”
“Hayward Clinton does most of the slaving,” said Lavinia, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Fortunately, Zilpha misunderstood.
“To be sure, someone has to do the routine work. I expect Roland concentrates on the creative part.”
“Yes, he creates the plumbing.” Lavinia didn’t say that aloud, though she’d have liked to. She was beginning to resent having the ginger cat so relentlessly cut down. After all, Roland might dish out the compliments, but it was Hayward who’d lugged that lard pail all the way from Dalby. That reminded her, there must be no more silver bud vases in the drafting room.
“I do want to thank you both again for sending up that delightful lunch,” she said, “but I must tell you that it won’t be necessary another time. It is a perquisite of my position, I find, for the gentlemen to treat me to a picnic lunch.”
“Why dearest, then it’s not so dreary after all?” cried Zilpha.
“No, it’s really rather fun, and you’re sweet to make it possible.” Actually, Zilpha hadn’t been the guiding force in the situation, but she’d be more apt to let it go on if she could be made to think the drafting room was her own idea. Now the two older women were exchanging another meaningful look.
“Tetsy,” said Miss Tabard dreamily, “do you think we could possibly organize a proper little family dinner soon and invite our new young kinsman?”
“Friday night?”
“Why not? Perhaps you could carry a tiny note up with you tomorrow, Lavvy, or should I be daringly modern and ring him up on the telephone?”
“I think Roland would prefer a note,” said Lavinia.
Then he could sleep with it under his pillow. Besides, she’d rather not deliver the message until Hayward was out of the office. Though she was sure he wouldn’t come if he were asked, it did seem unfair to leave him out so pointedly.
Punctual to the dot, Mrs. Smith came to wash the dinner dishes. Lavinia wondered if she ought to try to explain the afternoon’s contretemps, but she didn’t get a chance. Zilpha set her to reading aloud. Tetsy sat with them, nodding over her several glasses of port. By ten o’clock, all three were nodding, and Miss Tabard declared it to be bedtime.
Once out of the ladies’ sight, Lavinia didn’t try to stifle her yawns. She stepped through the now dark, tidy kitchen to her own room, pulling out hairpins as she went and letting the tresses flop as they might. By the time she reached her dresser, she’d gathered a handful. She set down the lamp she was carrying in her other hand, took the lid off the china hair receiver, and dropped the hairpins in. All of them spilled back out on the bureau scarf.
“That’s odd,” she murmured. She’d used every single hairpin she owned that morning, so the dish should have been empty. She never had any to spare, they were always falling out and getting lost. Turning up the wick to get a better light, she brought the lamp closer to the dish and peered in.
“Ugh! It looks like someone’s old rat.”
To stuff out their ballooning pompadours, women often collected their hair combings into dishes such as this and wadded them into a mass known as a rat or, even more flip-pantly, a cootie garage. Lavinia had never owned a rat, partly because a pompadour wasn’t becoming to her thin face and partly because she couldn’t have endured keeping a wad of dusty, dead hair around.
Whatever the thing was, she didn’t want it on her dresser. Wrinkling her nose, she shook the hair receiver over her wastebasket. Something fell, with a thump that was far too heavy. Aghast, she realized the furry wad was a real dead rat.
She also realized the creature couldn’t have crawled into the dish and pulled the lid over itself. This was another of Tetsy’s little jokes, and she wasn’t going to stand for it.
Lavinia was halfway to the stairs before she came to her senses. What was she going to do, storm up there and make a scene? Tetsy would deny having done such a disgusting thing, Zilpha would believe her companion; and Lavinia Tabard would be left looking like a fool as usual. No doubt that was the devious plan Tetsy had in mind.
Thankful that her windows were so close to the ground, Lavinia stripped down to chemise and petticoat, took the waste-basket and a metal shoehorn, and lowered herself over the sill. With the shoehorn, she dug a hole big enough to bury the creature.
Thank Heaven she hadn’t screamed. She would say nothing about the rat, pretend she’d never found it, but one of these days Miss Mull was going to get her comeuppance. Smiling grimly in the dark, Lavinia climbed back into the room, scrubbed out the hair receiver, washed her hands half a dozen times, and went to bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Watching Tetsy devour bacon and eggs made Lavinia feel sick to her stomach. She escaped from the breakfast table as soon as she decently could and almost ran up the hill to the shop.
Both the architects were there, Roland intent on his plumbing, Hayward going full speed ahead with his presentation sketches. They stopped just long enough to wish Lavinia good morning and went on with their work. She invaded the filing cabinets, eager to sort out the chaos left by a succession of Adenoid Annies.
The note
to Roland was in her pocket, and she didn’t have to wait long for a chance to deliver it. The telephone rang, and Clinton’s anguished yowls told her the crisis he’d been expecting was upon them. He slammed down the receiver, topaz eyes flashing sparks.
“Wouldn’t you know? Just when it looked as though we were beginning to see daylight. Ath, you’ll have to meet the Boston train with the truck. Get that load over to Jenkins as fast as the Lord will let you. I’ve got to go and try to beat some sense into those nincompoops down at the county surveyor’s office.”
He leaped for the bone-shaking solid-tired bicycle that was the firm’s alternate form of transport. Lavinia followed as far as the door.
“Hayward, will you be back to lunch?”
“Yes, Mother. Keep a candle in the window for your wandering boy.”
He waved his cap at her and careened down the road, pumping like a steam locomotive.
“I hope he doesn’t take a notion to ride with his feet on the handlebars,” Lavinia remarked as she went back to her files. “Is he always like this?”
Athelney pondered the question. “In a tearing hurry, you mean? Most of the time, I guess. There’s always so much to be done. I get fed up with the rushing around, myself, but Hay never knows when to quit. I suppose I ought to get going. The train’s due in pretty soon.”
He didn’t budge off his stool. Lavinia felt like giving him a push. Since that would hardly do, she did the next best thing.
“Here’s something to help you on your way,” she said, handing over the note. “Miss Tabard hopes you can come to dinner tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow? That’s Friday. I’m supposed to …” The young architect fingered the richly textured paper, studied the elegant script, and appeared to forget what he was supposed to do.
“Gee, that’s great! I’ll be delighted to come. Should I write a note back, do you think?”
“No, I’ll just tell her you said yes. Hadn’t you better start right now? Hayward says Jenkins is in a hurry for that load.”
“Hay’s always in a hurry. Would you please explain to Miss Tabard how very much I appreciate her kind invitation?”
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