by Frances
“How?” she said, of his remark about—presumably—the Inn they sat in.
“Helps business,” he said. “People decide they want to live in Glenville. Want to look around for land, or for a house. So they stay here, at the Inn, while Ned and the others show their listings. Three or four of them here right now, Ned says. Not like a convention, precisely, but every little helps.”
She supposed so.
“Speaking of that,” he said, “would you rather eat here? Or in the dining room?”
“Here,” she said. “Unless you—?”
“Here it is,” he said, and signaled for the waiter, for menus. He urged steak; he read her selections from the menu, in a fashion very hostly. He told her the chicken blinis were always good. She ordered a crab meat salad. They waited.
“Speak of the devil,” Howard Graham said, and looked toward a tall man who stood in the doorway and looked around the taproom. “Hiya, Ned.”
“Hi,” the tall man said, and approached. “The robber I was just talking about,” Graham said. “Highway robber, aren’t you, Ned?”
“Sure,” the tall man said. “How’s ambulance chasing?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Graham told him. “Mrs. Williams, like you to meet Ned Teller. Ned, Mrs. Williams. Ned’s in the termite business, like I said. Pull up a chair.”
“No,” Edwin Teller said. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Williams. Expecting a prospect. Wants to see the old Morton place.”
“God,” Howard Graham said. “You mean to say that’s not fallen down yet? Last I heard—”
He stopped abruptly and, in the same moment, Edwin Teller, realtor, turned toward the doorway with a widely welcoming smile, and moved toward it with enthusiasm. The slender woman with short brown hair stood in the doorway.
“Mrs. Banks,” Edwin Teller said, in a tone stout Cortez, had he been a less taciturn man, might have found appropriate in addressing the Pacific Ocean.
“I hope,” Mrs. Banks, obvious prospect for the old Morton place, said, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
She spoke in a low voice, a husky voice. Overnight, she seemed to have developed laryngitis. Because, Lois Williams thought a little desperately, I couldn’t have made that up, too.
Involuntarily, in her surprise, she looked at Howard Graham. He, too, had heard Mrs. Banks speak the night before; must—although of course he had built on the texture of a voice no such fantasy as she had built—notice how the voice had changed.
He looked back at her and there was nothing in his face, no surprise whatever in his face. His face was merely that of an amiable, matter-of-fact man waiting for his luncheon companion to say whatever she was about to. After a second or two, since she did not say anything, he said, “Yes, Mrs. Williams? You were going to say something?”
She hesitated a moment. Obviously, he had not heard the other voice—the other voice of what was certainly the same Mrs. Banks. (I can’t be wrong about that.) He might have been at the telephone—vaguely, she remembered he had been. Hadn’t Mrs. Banks said something after he came back? She could not remember.
“Nothing,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
IV
Robert Oliver said that there was no reason whatever to think it was the same woman. He said this harshly, with challenge and leaned forward in the webbed terrace chair to glare at Lois Williams. He also demanded that she suppose it was. So what?
It was then a quarter of seven in the evening. The house shaded the terrace from the slanting rays of the late sun, and there was a gentle breeze across the terrace. It was still almost entirely incomprehensible to Lois that Oliver was there at all, that he had been for more than half an hour. He had arrived shouting at her and now he was, in effect, shouting at her again although, she had to admit, without actually raising his voice. He was glaring at her, as he had glared on arrival.
It was entirely incomprehensible to Lois that, during that half hour, she had told this violent—this still entirely impossible man —of her fantastic imaginings; of the melodramatic concoction which had, a little embarrassingly, been disproved (as if disproof had been necessary!) almost before it had cooled in her mind. This man of all men!
She had been lying on a terrace chaise, with a glass of iced tea on a table beside her and a book in her lap. She had quit reading because the sun splashed on her book. She had not even, in any real sense, been thinking.
An MG, obviously going much too fast, had come along the blacktop. Without appreciably slackening pace, it had turned into the driveway of the small bright house in Long Meadow Manor, and, when it hit the gravel, thrown up a violent spurt of dust. It had progressed up the short driveway and stopped, as abruptly as if it had hit an invisible stone wall. And Robert Oliver, very tall, very angular, had unraveled himself from the little car, and slammed the car door after him. It was as if he punished the car. He took long strides across the grass strip between gravel and terrace and stood and glared down at Lois, who by that time had sat up on the chaise and was looking at him—looking at him with, she supposed, an expression of entire astonishment. Certainly, she felt entire astonishment.
“Passing by,” Oliver said, in a tone that blamed her for it. “Saw you and thought—what the hell?”
For one thing, this was obviously untrue. Never, she thought —while continuing to regard the tall man with surprise and (almost) with consternation—never had she seen a car, even an MG, move with more determination, more unrestrained purpose. For another thing, she was not actually in view from the blacktop.
He sat down abruptly. He leaned toward her and his tow hair —he really did need a haircut—fell down over his forehead and he pushed it back with an angry movement.
“All right,” he said. “I was rude. I don’t deny that I was rude. I’m a rude man. You may as well accept it.”
“I—” Lois said.
“You bushed your tail,” he said. “All affronted femininity. Made a hell of a racket going down those damned stairs.” It was an accusation. “Rat-a-tat-tat,” he said. “Rat-a-tat-tat. Anybody’d think—”
“Really, Mr.—” Lois said.
“All right,” he said. “Said I was sorry, didn’t I? Came all the way out here to apologize for ungentlemanly behavior. If you—
Lois leaned forward on the chaise and glared back at him; she felt herself all a single glare.
“Shut up!” she said. “Just shut up a minute. Just one minute. Did I ask you whether you were sorry? Did I? Do I care a rap how sorry you are, or whether you’re a rude man—as God knows you are. Do I? Just tell me that. As for saying you were sorry—when did you?”
He looked at her. His lips parted slightly.
“When?” she said.
And then, widely, he grinned. And then his long body began to vibrate with laughter.
For no reason whatever—for no reason at all—the glare died in Lois Williams. For a moment she looked, her blue eyes wide, at the laughing man. Then, without being by anything warned that it was about to happen, she began to laugh with him.
“Came all the way out here,” Bob Oliver said. “Full of good intentions and then—” The laughter got the better of words.
“Rat-a-tat-tat,” Lois said. “All you said was—rat-a-tat-tat” and found that, gripped by laughter, she was rocking backward and forward on the chaise.
After a time, as if by agreement, they stopped laughing. They sat and looked at each other, and with surprise.
“Mrs. Williams,” Bob Oliver said, with great gravity, “I am sorry I was rude today when you brought your very much appreciated contribution to the office. I apologize for anything I may have said—”
“Don’t,” she said. “You’ll start us up again. Do you like iced tea?”
“Not in the least,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I hate the damned—” He stopped abruptly.
“Gin and tonic?”
“Well—” he said.
She mixed him gin and tonic. After a moment’s hesi
tation, she mixed herself gin and tonic. (Iced tea is all very well for lonely hours.) She returned with glasses on a tray. He was standing off the terrace, on the grass, and looking at the house. He returned, took the tray from her, put it on a table. He said, “It’s a damned attractive house. A bright house.”
“Yes,” she said, “we like—” She did not go on. (When, dear God, would her tongue forget?) “I—” she said, but did not go on with that, either, because he did not seem to have heard her. It was difficult to suspect him of gentle tactfulness—of anything gentle. Still—
“For my money,” he said, still standing and looking at the house, and not at her—“for my money, most of the progress we’ve made in the two hundred and fifty years—the celebrated two hundred and fifty years—is in the places we live in. Some of us live in, that is. Aside from more efficient ways of killing ourselves, of course.” He did look at her, then, not with anything so obvious as sympathy. She smiled up at him, without saying anything.
“Speaking of houses,” he said, and paused while she sat down again on the chaise, and then sat down on a webbed chair facing her. “Speaking of houses, what was this about Mrs. Montfort’s voice?”
“Of hou—” she said; and then, “Oh. That it had an odd way of carrying. And you said that all women’s voices—”
“Couldn’t have said anything so absurd,” he told her, and shook his head—making the hair which needed cutting fall again across his forehead. “As to her voice—I got to thinking about it after you left—left rat-a-tat-tat. She didn’t have. Actually, a very soft voice. Very—ladylike voice. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “Only—of course I only saw her, heard her, the one time. Perhaps her physical condition—”
He narrowed his eyes.
“You wouldn’t think so, would you?” he said. “The other effect, if anything. But—why did you happen to mention it, Lois? Wonder if I’d noticed it?” He looked at her, question in his eyes as well as in his words. “As if,” he said, “the texture of her voice had some meaning? Some relevancy?”
“Because—” she said, and hesitated. It had all been explained —or almost all. All that mattered had been explained. To repeat the absurdities she had so wildly imagined—
“Because,” Lois said, “I thought—was sure, really—that I heard the voice again but—after Mrs. Montfort was dead. Only—it was another woman speaking.” She shook her head. “I know how it sounds,” she said. “It’s silly, I realize. But—”
She stopped and shook her head again.
But he waited—waited as if it were quite certain that she would go on. And, she went on. She told him all of it, not quite, still, understanding why she did. (Because, she thought, I still want to share it with somebody? Wild as it is, made up as it is?)
He listened as if it made sense. He was, after all—and difficult as it was to believe—a tactful man.
“Dr. Young signed the death certificate,” he said. “I talked to him—part of the story, the obit. Natural causes—the infirmities of age. And Graham told you he’d checked the signature?”
“Because it might be too—shaky,” she said. “Yes. I said it was just—my imagination running away with me, Bo—Mr. Oliver.”
“Bob,” he said, absently. “I know you did. And Ralph said it was about as usual?”
“Yes,” she said. “Mr. Bourgelotti at the bank.”
“Careful man, Howdy,” Oliver said, half as if to himself. “You’ll have to say that for him. Gave you a good lunch, I hope?” He glared at her, slightly. She said, “Very.”
“The thing is,” he said, “I’m one of the executors. Howdy tell you that?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t—wait. He said he and Keating and— Bob. I didn’t make the connection.”
“All sorts of things happen to a small-town editor,” he said. “The small-town editor. If he doesn’t fall flat on his face—too flat on his face—he gets to be some kind of an institution. Like a selectman. So—I’m head of the library committee and on the school board and—a hell of a lot of things like that. Good for business and—”
He stopped, seemingly to listen to himself.
“All right,” he said. “I like it. What I came out of the city for, I suppose. You’ve heard about the newspaperman who’s always going to buy a small-town newspaper and run it the way a newspaper ought to be run? And never does? Only—I did. Part of it, anyway. I bought the paper. And— You don’t want my biography.”
“But,” she said, “I was very—”
“All right,” he said. “You’re a nice girl and a good listener. Another time. I suppose that—the institution part of it—is why she picked me. You tell Howdy Graham about these—imaginings of yours?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “Except I wasn’t going to tell anybody. Or why I did tell you.”
His grin came back at that.
“I inspire confidences,” he said. “Small children. Dogs trust me, too. I have a very large circle of confiding dogs.”
“Woof,” Lois said. “Also—everything Mr. Graham told me made all the things I’d made up more absurd. Natural death—the usual signature—” She shrugged.
“When she was signing,” Oliver said. “She seemed—chipper? Alert? In full possession of her faculties, as they say?”
She nodded her head. She said Mrs. Montfort had seemed “chipper.”
“Of course,” Lois said, “it was the first time I’d met her. So I don’t know how she usually was. But—she seemed very much on top of things. Looked so old and—wispy. But seemed to have so much vitality. And—in half an hour—she was dead.” There was a vertical line between his somewhat bushy eyebrows. “It’s all pointless,” she said. “Look, let’s forget it. I’ll get you another—”
He made an abrupt gesture, a gesture which, angrily, told her to be still; a rude gesture. He was, still, an impossible man. He ran a hand through the tow-colored hair that needed cutting. Also, Lois thought, he drives to the public danger.
“Banks,” he said, suddenly. “You said this woman’s name was Banks?”
She said, “Yes.”
“A friend of my wife’s,” he said. “Former wife. Grace somebody. Married a man named Banks. Little woman. Had yellow hair. We did know some of the damnedest people when we were in New York.”
Lois considered what to say to that, since with that he looked at her again. Lois said, “Oh.”
“Well,” he said, “does that sound right?”
“Sound—oh, you mean like the Mrs. Banks at the Inn? With the carrying voice?”
“Obviously,” he said, with great patience.
“Not especially. This Mrs. Banks has brown hair. It could be dyed, of course. As a matter of fact, I think it is.”
“There’s no reason to think it’s the same woman,” he said, and it was then that challenge came into his voice. “And what if it is? Suppose it is? So what?”
“I haven’t,” Lois said equably, “the faintest idea what you’re talking about. The same woman as what? As who?”
“Your Mrs. Banks,” he said. “The Mrs. Banks my wife knew.”
“Of course,” she said. “And, as you just said—so what?”
“Buying a house up here,” he said. “Looking at a house, anyway. She must have changed a lot. Didn’t think the country was even a nice place to visit. Very superior about it. Like Laurie.”
She shook her head at that.
“Laurie,” he said. “Formerly Mrs. Robert Oliver. Now Mrs. Robert Oliver retired—via Reno. Glenville or Laurie, choice of one. Of course, it wasn’t working out anyway. She had—other interests. Rut—if it’s the same Banks, it’s—interesting.”
“I still don’t see—”
“Telephone?” he said.
The telephone was just inside the bright house. When she pointed through the opened french doors he went. He dialed and waited and said, “Mr. Teller in?” and waited again. He made no ef
fort to lower his voice, and she none to avoid listening. “Ned. Bob Oliver. Hear you’ve got a prospect for the old Morton place.” He listened again. He said, “I see. Just thought there might be an item in it. I—” He listened further. “I can try,” he said. “I don’t know how he feels about making speeches but I’ll ask. What was the date again?” He listened for a moment longer; he said, “O.K., Ned,” and returned to the terrace. He, momentarily, glared at Lois, who was getting used to that.
“Mrs. Banks,” he said, “didn’t like the old Morton place. Can’t say I blame her. Also—seems to have cooled off on the whole idea of looking at houses, let alone buying them. Great disappointment to Ned, who thought he had a live prospect.”
He sat down abruptly and looked, with apparent resentment, at his almost empty glass.
“As a result of which,” he said, “I’ve got to try to get a friend of mine—not very close friend, either—to speak to the Lions two weeks from tonight. Very active Lion, Ned is.”
“Can’t I do something about your—”
“Took her back to the Inn, Ned says,” he said. “What—oh, this is fine for the moment. You say she was in her thirties, at a guess?”
At a guess.
He tapped his fingers on an iron table, rather—she thought—as if it were a typewriter. Then he stood up.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She blinked.
“See if it’s the same one,” he said, and was impatient. “What did you think?” He regarded her distantly. But then, abruptly, the grin came back. “Mrs. Williams,” he said, “if you are not otherwise engaged, will you come to the Inn? Have a cooling drink, followed by dinner? Incidental purpose—to have a look at a Mrs. Banks?”
She said, “Well—”
“Good,” he said. “I suppose you’ll have to powder your nose?”
