Leave Well Enough Alone

by Rosemary Wells

  “I’ve changed the title, as you see,” Mrs. Hoade went on. “I’ll tell you why....

  The wine and the tobacco and the stuffiness of the room began to mesmerize Dorothy. Matthew had forgotten to turn off one of his lawn sprinklers outside in the garden. It threw a shower of water against the window behind Mrs. Hoade every three seconds or so. The light from the whaler’s lamp made the drops diamond bright. There was something about the wine that stirred a memory in Dorothy. She tried desperately to concentrate on what Mrs. Hoade was saying, but she kept picturing her Aunt Ruth. Her Aunt Ruth’s parlor on Sunday afternoons. That was where she’d tasted blackberry wine before.

  Tiny prisms of light rolled down the windowpane, only to be whipped aside as new drops took their place. Two nameless things began to merge in Dorothy’s mind as if two ends of a rope were inexorably knotting themselves together in as perfect a clove hitch as one of Baldy’s tethers. It began with a smell. The smell of Aunt Ruth’s parlor. Identical to the smell inside the cottage, when Miss Borg had opened the door the day Dorothy was looking for Lisa. The smell of lavender sachet in the bureau drawer. That was what I was looking for. It wasn’t a thing at all. It was the smell that brought me back there. Dorothy shuddered.

  “And then again,” Mrs. Hoade was saying, “I had another idea for a title. Let me try this out on you.”

  “Yes?” said Dorothy. As surely as she knew the peculiar odor of Maureen’s house—sometimes pleasant and powdery, usually sour and ammoniac—and the smell of every other house she’d been in that contained a baby, she knew for certain there had never been a baby in that cottage at all. Someone else had been kept there.

  All the thoughts she had so successfully prevented herself from thinking during the past two weeks came rushing back to her. She couldn’t stop them. What were the Hoades hiding? Whom had she seen in that window during the storm? What had happened to Miss Borg? Dorothy had not seen her come back from the hospital with Mr. and Mrs. Hoade. She had not gone to the burial. She had vanished.

  Dorothy’s glass dropped and shattered between her feet. “I’m a little sick, I think!” she said to a bewildered Mrs. Hoade. She dashed upstairs.

  Dorothy hung her head out her bedroom window. She was determined not to be nauseated. She took several deep drafts of the crisp night air. Where was Miss Borg? Who was Miss Borg, anyway? Like an imp whispering in her ear, Mr. Hoade’s voice repeated, “Borg is hardly in a position to bring anything out now.” Somewhere beneath her, among the flowers and long pulverized by the rain, was a shred of paper that had said “witnes.”

  “Dorothy who?”

  “Dorothy Coughlin, Sister. In second period English? I’m sorry to bother you, but ...

  “Dorothy Coughlin! It’s seven o’clock in the morning!”

  “I know, Sister Elizabeth, but I thought you got up at six thirty.”

  “I do! But that doesn’t make this hour of the day any more palatable for conversation. A nun is no better before her morning coffee than anyone else! Why on earth are you calling me, child? Where are you?”

  Dorothy took a deep breath. “I’m in Llewellyn, Pennsylvania, Sister. And I’m frightened. My parents are over in Ireland. My sister Maureen thinks I’m crazy and Terrance is somewhere playing football in a camp.” Dorothy glanced nervously at the grandfather clock that stood in the far corner of the living room. Its peaceful ticking was the only sound in the house. She took the telephone around the back of the pantry, as far as the wire would stretch, and cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

  Sister Elizabeth listened in silence to Dorothy’s hurried disjointed story. She interrupted only once to say, “That sounds just like Maureen,” when Dorothy described that conversation.

  “I probably left out the most important thing, Sister,” Dorothy said in conclusion. “It would be just like me. But I think I have told you everything. Do you think I’m crazy, too? I don’t know what to do. I’m frightened.” Sister Elizabeth did not answer. “Sister? Sister Elizabeth? Are you still there? Are you mad at me?”

  “I’m thinking,” said Sister Elizabeth. At last she cleared her throat, as if, Dorothy could not help thinking, she were about to embark on Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, which was her favorite recitation. Instead, she asked, “You say you actually saw someone in the cottage?”

  “Yes. I’m pretty sure. Yes.”

  “How sure?”

  “Well, it was just for a second, but I did see him...her, whoever it was.” Dorothy added, “I know it wasn’t the nurse, Miss Borg. Miss Borg is short and squat.”

  “I believe I can say with certainty, Dorothy, although I’ll look it up to be sure, that the labor union you mention, loathsome as its leadership is, was not the one connected with that dreadful affair last year.... You say there’s a fresh grave not far from the house?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “But the name is Coburg.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “And his name is Hoade and her maiden name was Krasilovsky?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  ‘Well then, I can tell you one thing. People don’t go around using other people’s graveyards for nefarious purposes. The Coburg family, after all, might not like it. Do something.”

  “Yes, Sister?”

  “If there’s a phone book there, look up Coburg. If there’s a listing anywhere near your place you can be sure your nurse is not in the grave you saw.”

  Dorothy picked up the telephone directory. It was dog-eared and five years out of date. “Coburg,” she muttered. “Coburg, Abel; Coburg, Gerald...there’s lots. Here it is. Coburg, M., Route 8, Llewellyn. It can’t be too far. We’re on Route 8 too. Maybe it’s that big old house way up the road behind the hedges.”

  “Most likely, Dorothy,” said Sister. “Well that’s out. The word witness, by the way, is used on hundreds of lands of mundane documents. You’ll find it on marriage licenses, deeds, bills of attainder, wills, contracts of all kinds, mortgage agreements, IOUs, and even some foreign passports. There is no reason, in my opinion, to jump to the conclusion that a witness to that dreadful slaughter was being kept on the estate, and was—in your words, not mine, Dorothy—bumped off.”

  “Sister, I just have a feeling something’s going on here.”

  “Well, if you’re that frightened, I suggest you invent an excuse to come home. But I really doubt there is much amiss, Dorothy. These things simply don’t happen to imaginative young girls. Only a very bad television program would come up with a drama like that.” Sister Elizabeth pronounced the word television with the accent on the third syllable, as if it were a brand-new invention. “Are you convinced, Dorothy? Are you no longer frightened?”

  “I guess not, Sister. I mean, I guess I’m convinced.” Sister Elizabeth said nothing for a minute. Then her pause ended. “By virtue of your nose, you are positive a child was not in that house? And because you saw a grave that wasn’t there two weeks ago, you are suspecting foul play?”

  “Well, I don’t know, Sister. I can’t dig up the grave to see who’s in it.”

  “Disinter, Dorothy. No, I’m sure there’s a logical, aboveboard explanation for everything you’ve said. I’m afraid, however, that it mightn’t be in your best interest to pursue this any further.”

  “You mean it’s just plain none of my business, Sister?”

  Sister laughed. “Exactly,” she said. “I would not ordinarily admit this to a pupil, Dorothy, but I happen to be a devotee of Miss Agatha Christie. You see, even nuns have small vices. At any rate it’s better than smoking cigarettes like Father Foley. So I admit to being intrigued by what you say. There is one thing in your story that doesn’t fit in, but I cannot, for the earth, think what it is. I know it reminds me for some reason of the back of father’s haberdashery store, when I was a little girl.” Dorothy had never considered the possibility of Sister Elizabeth’s ever being a little girl or having a father, much less one who ran a haberdashery, but then she had to have a father and he couldn’t very well h
ave been a Jesuit priest. She tried to stop herself thinking trivial things like that at a time like this. “I shall call you back, Dorothy, if that something turns out to be of substance, or if I find your labor leader is a man in trouble. In the meantime, sit tight!”

  Dorothy gave the number and hung up. She was positive she’d never heard the words sit tight spill from Sister’s lips nor ever would again. There was a stirring and banging upstairs. Someone was getting up.

  Dorothy stood at the bottom of the stairs. Mr. Hoade appeared suddenly at the top. “I didn’t know you were here!” she blurted out.

  “It’s my house, isn’t it?” he asked, coming down in his bathrobe. “I drove down late last night. You’re up early.”

  “I was expecting a letter from my mother,” Dorothy answered.

  As if in answer to a prayer, Dorothy picked up the morning mail, which lay under the letter slot against the front door.

  “A letter from my parents,” she said with all the blameless youthful cheer she could muster. “And one from my best friend, Kate.”

  The hours until three o’clock dragged impossibly for Dorothy. Three was when Baldy would come around and pick her up. In the meantime Lisa had awoken with a cold and Mrs. Hoade with a hangover, and the turkey wouldn’t make an aspic. When at last she swung herself into Charley’s saddle, Dorothy felt quite out of sorts.

  “Where do you want to go today?” Baldy asked.

  “Back to the graveyard.”

  “Again? We went there yesterday.”

  “Tell you why later,” said Dorothy. She remained uncommunicative as they trotted up a ridge, through the woods, and past the place where the farms in the valley could be seen in the splendor of their grain-filled fields. They passed over the wooden bridge exactly as they’d done the day before. Yesterday’s hoofprints were still visible in the soft cinders on the other side of the bridge. The great nests of vines that they’d pulled up to read the headstones two weeks before had not fallen. This gave the little cemetery a disheveled look; Dorothy reminded herself to set them straight when she left this time.

  “What are we looking for, Dorothy? Did you lose something?” Baldy wanted to know when they’d tied up their horses and dismounted.

  “Something unusual. Something out of the ordinary,” said Dorothy. She realized that she hadn’t any idea what she was looking for.

  “Like clues to a murder?” Baldy asked. “I’ve read some Nancy Drews. Tell me if we’re looking for clues.”

  Dorothy laughed for the first time that day. “It sounds so silly, Baldy. It wouldn’t help to explain it all. I’d rather not, because if I’m wrong it would be a cruel, awful rumor. So let’s just go looking. Tell me if you see anything odd. Footprints, bits of cloth stuck to nettles, a pocket comb somebody dropped.”

  “Will you promise to tell me, if I find something?”

  “Okay.”

  “Is it about the Hoades?”

  “Yes,” said Dorothy, feeling a little frightened and a little foolish all at once. She began examining the blackberry briars. Baldy followed at a respectful distance, eating an occasional berry when Dorothy wasn’t looking.

  If there had been any scraps of cloth caught on bushes, or objects dropped from pockets, Dorothy decided she wouldn’t know what to make of them anyway. The rain of the past week would have obscured any footprints, except theirs of the day before, and those were in evidence in great abundance.

  Dorothy sighed. In mystery stories, detectives always came upon things suspiciously left in graveyards. From a single heel mark Perry Mason, or even Delia Street, could tell the identity of the wearer and whether he or she had been running, limping, or dragging a body.

  “Well, we haven’t found anything, have we?” Baldy asked at last, scratching her nose. “Will you tell me anyway, Dorothy?”

  “Well, okay,” Dorothy answered. “This is going to sound pretty dumb. Do you remember when I told you the baby had died? The Hoades’ baby?”

  “And so,” said Baldy when Dorothy had finished the whole story, “you thought maybe a witness to that labor union murder was buried here?”

  “I wondered. But I guess everything’s on the up-and-up.”

  “If my uncle were home, he’d tell us right away about this Coburg family. Probably knows the Hoades too. I could write him,” she added helpfully.

  “Takes too long,” said Dorothy.

  “Anyway,” said Baldy, placing her left foot in Gabriel’s stirrup and pulling herself into the saddle, “it’s a cinch the Hoades never used this place to bury anybody. First of all the grave’s too big to be a baby’s. Secondly they wouldn’t dare use someone else’s property, if there are live Coburgs in the phone book.”

  Up and down, Baldy’s compact, chunky form rose and fell as she posted with the precision of a Swiss clock. Gabriel trotted swiftly, almost soundlessly over the soft earth ahead of Dorothy and Charley. The sweat poured down Charley’s neck like rain on a window. Dorothy flicked at it with her fingers, but it kept pouring down. Like the rain on the end of the coffin... “Oh Baldy!” Dorothy shouted. She felt her foot slip in the stirrup. “That’s it!”

  Baldy whirled around and pulled Gabriel up. “What’s it? Do you want to give me a heart attack?” she asked.

  “The coffin!”

  “What coffin?”

  “The coffin. The baby’s coffin. It was so long that it took up the whole back of Matthew’s station wagon. It wasn’t a baby’s coffin at all. There must have been a grown-up in it.” Flies began to gather on Charley’s ears. He wanted to get started again. Dorothy brushed them away. Why didn’t Baldy say anything? Why was she so still, all of a piece with Gabriel like a civil war statue?

  “I think you better stop, Dorothy,” she said at last.

  “Stop what?” Dorothy asked, wiping her face on her shirt sleeve.

  Baldy had brought her horse up even with Charley’s neck. Dorothy felt Baldy’s strong warm hand play against her own wrist and hold it tightly. “Don’t do this, Dorothy. Leave other people’s skeletons in other people’s closets. I know I’m not smart like you, but I do know one thing. I wouldn’t mess around with that Mr. Hoade. Not for a million bucks. If there’s anything you’re not supposed to know about you better not find it out. Please!” Baldy paused for breath. “We’ve had such a wonderful time riding. I don’t have any friends here, you know. I just want to look forward to what’s left of the summer.”

  “You’re right, Baldy,” Dorothy said. “Maybe if I had Ned Nickerson to protect me it would be okay, but I don’t.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Nancy Drew’s big strong boyfriend.”

  And what a thing to give up, she told herself when they’d gotten out of the narrow path that attracted so many horseflies. They cantered all the way to the top of a hill where Baldy said the view was most spectacular. If I meddle any further in this, Dorothy reasoned, I’ll be fired and packed off home in a big fat hurry. There’s not quite two weeks ʼtil Labor Day. Maybe Mrs. Hoade will let me ride more days instead of paying me extra money. She’s sending the cookbook off to the publisher today. She can afford the time and so can I.

  The goldenrod brushed against Charley’s legs and under the bottoms of Dorothy’s boots. At the top of the hill the wind blew, the horses ceased to sweat, and Dorothy pulled her hair back, as it had been plastered to her face with perspiration. “When it’s not so hazy you can see five or six miles,” Baldy told her. The view of the undulating pastures and oblong meadows full of field corn held Dorothy and Baldy speechless on their standing horses for a moment. Then Dorothy sighed and said, “I wish it were all mine, too.”

  “Yours, too? It doesn’t belong to me or even to my uncle,” Baldy said in surprise.

  “Oh, yes, it does,” said Dorothy.

  Dinna had not taken home the pancake-shaped turkey, Mrs. Hoade informed Dorothy when Dorothy came in. However, she had decided to include the recipe in the package anyway. It was now in the mail, Mrs. Hoade went on to s
ay with a positive twinkle in her eyes. There had been a call from Dorothy’s sister, Mrs. Hoade added.

  Dorothy pulled off her boots in the kitchen. She groaned. “Maureen? I wonder what she wants now. I hope Mom and Dad are okay.”

  “I expect they are,” said Mrs. Hoade. “Dinna took the message.” She peered at the greasy slip of paper with the dreadful handwriting. “Everything is hunky-dory. E.M.O.S.H.,” she read, “that makes no sense. Must be a misspelling. Well, it doesn’t seem to be much of an emergency. Now, get the girls washed up. We’ll have turkey croquettes tonight, dear,” said Mrs. Hoade, downing the rest of a large Scotch and pouring herself another.

  Dorothy frowned at the telephone message as she climbed the stairs. Emosh? She smiled. Of course it wasn’t Maureen. E.M.O.S.H. Elizabeth Macintosh, Order of the Sacred Heart. If Dorothy hadn’t known it was impossible, she would have imagined Sister was having fun with gangster movie words like hunky-dory and sit tight and her own encoded initials.

  Mr. Hoade was changing his shirt in his bedroom as Dorothy went by. “Get your message?” he asked as he buttoned the third button down.

  Dorothy shivered a little at his voice. “Yes, Mr. Hoade,” she answered.

  “I happened to pick up the extension at the pool,” he said smoothly, “same time as Dinna picked it up in the kitchen.” He looked at himself in the mirror for an instant. “Dinna thought it was your sister, but it wasn’t. It was a nun, wasn’t it?”

  Dorothy crumpled the paper in her hand. She hoped Sister Elizabeth had said nothing more than hunky-dory. “Yes, my English teacher,” Dorothy managed to stutter.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Hoade. He closed the door softly in Dorothy’s face. “You don’t mind? I’m changing my pants,” he said, with a chuckle that Dorothy didn’t particularly like.

  “Time to get washed up for supper, girls!” Dorothy called into the library. “Mom says just a few minutes.”