Alias Mrs Jones

by Kate McLachlan

  “Thank you. I would love to join you.”

  “It’s settled then. You come home from work on Friday, and we’ll all go over together. We’ll borrow Ida Mae’s wagon. You and Trissie are little enough, we’ll all fit if we squeeze. And don’t mention this to the others, of course. Our salons are very select.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I LOOKED FORWARD to the salon on Friday, but there were four days of teaching to get through before then, and the start of Tuesday was not auspicious. The third grade classroom had not been cleaned. Paper still littered the floor, paint brushes stuck where they had been dropped, and paste in the uncapped jars had dried up. Tacked to the blackboard, which had not been wiped, was a note from the principal.

  Miss Chumley, the mess you left this room in is unacceptable! Clean it up immediately and see to it that your room is cleaned daily before you leave! Wipe the blackboard, and paint is for every fourth Friday ONLY.

  I crumpled the note, feeling very ill-used. How was I supposed to know it was my job to clean the classroom? Nobody told me. Besides, I had my hands full with teaching thirty-four eight- and nine-year-old children. Children, I now realized, who were not the sweet cherubs I’d thought, but rather were conniving hooligans who had played me for a fool. They knew they weren’t allowed to paint on a Monday.

  I cleaned the room as best I could before the students arrived, then forced them to finish the job as soon as the morning prayer was finished. For the rest of the day, I kept their little noses buried in schoolbooks regardless of whether they were blowing their eyes out from the inside or not. I felt a bit mean and very much like a forceful career woman when I made them clean the room again at the end of the day. I don’t know if they learned any lessons at all that day, but I certainly did.

  I left my pristine classroom and went upstairs, where I discovered how little seventh graders care about Brazilian exports when a real life drama was unfolding in their lives. Fannie had not returned the night before, and it was now common knowledge that she and Will Sims were both missing.

  “Who can tell me the importance of coffee to the Brazilian economy?” I asked.

  Several hands shot up, but only one waved frantically back and forth.

  “Guy?”

  “Did you hear about my sister?”

  “Yes, I did. I know you must be worried, but let’s think about Brazil now, shall we?”

  “I think she ran away with that boy,” Guy said.

  “Perhaps, but you don’t know that, and it’s not proper to spread rumors.”

  “They were in love,” Guy said, the tone of his voice leaving no one guessing as to his feelings about it. The other students giggled.

  “Your parents will find out what happened,” I said. “Marshal Mitchell will help them. Meanwhile, coffee makes up what percentage of Brazil’s exports?”

  “Marshal Mitchell never asked me anything at all,” Guy protested. “They made me go out of the room, and I’m the only one who even knew about that boy.”

  “That’s enough, Guy. This is not the time or place for this conversation. Now, about Brazil’s coffee.”

  Guy glared at me and then buried his face in his arms for the rest of class. I ignored him until the bell rang, when I said, “Guy, please stay after class.” I heard gasps from the other students, but Guy was not in trouble. I was merely curious. I’d thought I was the only one who knew Fannie’s secret.

  I sat on the desk beside Guy in the empty classroom. “You knew about Will Sims?”

  Guy raised his head. Pink indentations creased his cheek where his head had lain, but he hadn’t been weeping or sulking like I’d thought. He just looked sleepy. “I didn’t know it was Will Sims until last night, but I knew she was sneaking out to see a boy. I knew more than Mother and Dad. They didn’t even know that.”

  “She was sneaking out? When?”

  “Lots of times. At night. Her room’s right next to mine. I heard her leave all the time, and sometimes I heard her come back. It was always late, after Mother and Dad went to bed.”

  I recalled the sounds I’d heard the first night I stayed there. If Fannie always made that much noise, I wasn’t surprised Guy heard it. The wonder was that his parents did not.

  “Did you tell Marshal Mitchell this?”

  “No, I told you, they wouldn’t even let me stay in the room. I would have told him if he asked me.”

  “Did you know she was planning to run away?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t notice her packing or acting any differently?”

  He squinted out the window and shook his head. “I didn’t go in her room. She might have packed something. But she was acting strange ever since we found that body.”

  “Strange in what way?”

  “Sort of scared. Girls are scared about things like that.” He stretched his neck to see out the window and waved.

  I stood to see what was out there. Carrie Hennessey stood at the edge of the playground in the trampled snow. When she saw me looking, she turned so I could only see her back.

  “Is Carrie waiting for you?”

  Guy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes we walk partway home together, if we boys aren’t playing snowball. I don’t like girls, but her family’s sort of friends with Mother and Dad.”

  “The Hennesseys?” They didn’t seem the Dunns’ sort at all.

  “Not Mr. Hennessey, just Carrie and Jenny and their mother. She knew Mother back in St. Paul.”

  “You mother lived in St. Paul?”

  “Yes, we all did,” he said, as if I was silly not to know it. “That’s where we’re from. I was just a baby then.”

  “Why did you move here?”

  “Because of Dad’s job. He worked for the railroad back then.”

  It seemed a coincidence that the Dunns and Hester Hennessey and Mr. Stanfield all haled from St. Paul, but once I thought about it, it made sense. Hillyard was a railroad town, and St. Paul was the railroad’s headquarters.

  “Did Mrs. Hennessey move here the same time as your family?”

  “No, and she wasn’t Mrs. Hennessey then. She—” Guy broke off, a startled and wary look crossing his face. “I forgot. I mean, I forget. I have to go now, Miss Chumley. May I go now? Carrie’s waiting for me.”

  I nodded, and he darted to the coat closet and grabbed his coat, hat, and baseball glove. I heard him clatter down the stairs and stood at the window to watch him run across the playground to where Carrie stood. He spoke urgently to her, and they both turned and looked up at my window. I raised my hand in greeting, but they did not acknowledge it. They turned and ran, slipping on the ice, toward Market Street.

  I STOPPED AT Hennessey’s Confectionary on my way home. I was curious to learn how Carrie’s mother knew Mr. Stanfield, and besides, I was out of fudge.

  A row of children clutching pennies stood in front of the candy case chattering about the selection before them, while Mrs. Hennessey measured bon bons for a large woman in a green striped dress. The door to the back room was open and a small gate was latched across the opening. The room was apparently lived in, as toys and boots and dishes were scattered about it. Teddy played there with a girl who was a smaller version of Carrie.

  I stood behind the striped woman and waited my turn. Mrs. Hennessey glanced at me with a polite smile that faded when she saw me. Her eyes were puffy as if she had been crying.

  The striped woman turned to go. I stepped forward, but before I could speak the back door into the kitchen opened and Carrie rushed in. Mrs. Hennessey looked back at the sound.

  “You’re late,” she said sharply.

  “I’m sorry,” Carrie said. She threw her coat onto a kitchen chair, snatched up an apron, and unlatched the gate into the shop. “My teacher kept us late. I—” She saw me and froze.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Mrs. Hennessey said. “The children have been waiting. What would you like, ma’am?”

  Without taking her eyes off me, Carrie stepped
slowly through the door, latched the gate, and wrapped the apron around her.

  “The bon bons that woman was buying looked good,” I said. “May I have a quarter pound?”

  Carrie released a breath and quickly tied the apron in front of her. She moved to the candy counter, and the children clamored to make their purchases.

  “I was sorry to hear about your friend,” I said to Mrs. Hennessey.

  “My friend?”

  “Mr. Stanfield.”

  “The man who was killed?” She did not pause in scooping bon bons into a paper sack. “He was no friend of mine. That will be eighteen cents.”

  “But he knew you.” I handed her two dimes. “He called you Hester.”

  She shot a glance at Carrie and said in a low voice, “My name is Helen.”

  I didn’t believe her, but I was too burdened with my own alias to be concerned with hers. “Well, I’m sorry in any case. It must have been a shock.”

  “Don’t say that. I tell you, I didn’t know him.” She looked me deliberately in the eyes. “Mrs. Jones, is it?”

  It took me a stunned moment to realize what she’d said. “Don’t call me that,” I said through numb lips, and this time it was I who lowered my voice and glanced at Carrie. “My name is Mabel Chumley.”

  “And my name is Helen Hennessey.” We stared at each other for a long moment until she seemed to come to a decision. “Come with me.” She opened the gate to the back room. I circled the counter and followed her.

  “Mama!” Teddy toddled up to his mother with his arms outstretched.

  Mrs. Hennessey picked him up. “Jenny, go help Carrie out front. I’ll take care of Teddy.”

  “Good,” the girl said with more relief than respect, and she skipped through the open gate into the shop.

  I saw a staircase leading up and wondered if Mr. Hennessey was asleep up there. Mrs. Hennessey glanced that way also, shot me a glance, and led me without apology through the messy room to the kitchen beyond. She closed the door between the two rooms, and we sat at a wooden table.

  “I heard him call you Mrs. Jones,” she said.

  “And I heard him call you Hester.”

  We assessed one another, wary but joined in a secret we shared, a name that only Mr. Stanfield knew, and now Mr. Stanfield was dead.

  “Let us agree,” she said. “I won’t reveal your name if you won’t reveal mine.”

  It wasn’t right. For reasons I didn’t know, Mrs. Hennessey didn’t want anyone to know her true identity. Badly enough to kill Mr. Stanfield to keep it secret? I didn’t know, but I was in no position to cast stones.

  “All right,” I said.

  Chapter Twelve

  OF COURSE MRS. Hennessey wasn’t the only one who heard Mr. Stanfield call me Mrs. Jones. Carrie had been present as well, and she reminded me of it the next day.

  “I’ve graded your essays,” I told the class. “I found them very interesting.”

  Several hands shot up in the air.

  “Yes?” I looked at May, a tall dark-haired girl sitting behind Carrie.

  “May I pass them out?”

  “Oh. Well, yes, I suppose so.” I handed the papers to her, and the others lowered their hands with disappointed expressions. “I’ve written your grade at the top of the paper, and I’ve put comments on some of them. Please take some time to think about what I’ve written.”

  The students practically snatched their papers from May’s hands, and before all the papers had even been passed back, hands were raised in the air again.

  I nodded at plump little Beanie Sipes. “Yes?”

  “May I read my essay to the class?”

  “Me too,” someone said.

  “Can we all?”

  “Hm.” I pretended to consider it as if granting a favor, but there was no hesitation in my mind. Listening to the students read would be much easier than trying to teach about the economics of imports and exports, a subject that was still fuzzy in my mind. “All right. You may go first, Mr. Sipes.”

  So the students read aloud and the hour passed easily enough. As we neared the end of it, only one student had not read.

  “Carrie Hennessey, will you read your essay?”

  “Do I have to?”

  The indrawn gasps of her classmates told me they were as taken aback as I was. It was disrespectful and not at all like Carrie. The students watched me closely to see what I would do. I had no choice. Mrs. Dunn’s voice rang in my ears. I had to be firm.

  “Yes, you have to. Read your essay to the class, Carrie.”

  She clenched her lips and breathed heavily out her nose, but she reached into her desk and pulled out a crumpled paper ball. She halfheartedly smoothed out the paper and stood at the front of the class. Heaving a sigh, she mumbled her poem, ignoring the rhythm and punctuation she’d so carefully included when writing it. She read like someone who had never even seen a poem, let alone written one. I had never heard Carrie read before and might have suspected that she hadn’t written it after all, but the puzzled looks on her classmates’ faces told me that this was not the way Carrie normally read.

  She finished reading, slouched into her desk, and shoved the paper back inside it. Before I could think of anything to say, the bell rang, and the students surged for the door.

  I went to Carrie’s desk and reached inside for the essay. I’d given her an A, but I knew I’d also written a comment on the paper. Had it offended her somehow? I smoothed out the paper. “Very imaginative Carrie. Your ideas are original, and your poem is well constructed. Very clever.” No, there was nothing wrong with the comment, but beneath it, Carrie had scrawled in heavy pencil, “Not so clever as you think you are, Mrs. Jones!”

  My heart sank. I’d already guessed that Carrie must have told her mother about the name Mr. Stanfield called me, but why it should make Carrie so angry with me, I had no idea.

  It was nearly dark when I finally left the school. I forgot to have the third graders clean the classroom before they left, so I had to do it myself. I took the shortest route home, after a detour around the jail, through the sparsely populated streets west of Market. A mist of freezing rain that day had glazed the snow with a thick crust of ice. My boots crunched loudly and masked any other sounds that might be nearby, and there were no electric streetlights to illuminate the area, so I was completely unprepared when I felt a hard blow between my shoulder blades. I turned with a cry, more from fear than pain, but there was no one there. I felt another blow, this time to the side of my head. It knocked my hat off, and I realized what it was.

  I was being pelted by snowballs.

  Ice balls, rather. They were hard, compact and deadly as rocks, and I shivered with genuine fear as another icy pellet whizzed by my face with dangerous force.

  “Stop it!” I shouted in the direction from which the missiles came. “You could really injure someone!”

  A large ice ball struck my chest. I staggered back, just a little, but it was enough to make me slip on the ice. I thought I heard a soft giggle just before another ball exploded in my face. I let out a cry and fell backward onto the frozen ground.

  I heard footsteps running away, a woman’s voice calling out, and more footsteps, this time running toward me. I put a hand to my head. A drip on the side of my face was warm.

  “It’s Mabel!” the woman said, and I recognized the voice. It was Ida Mae, and soon I was surrounded by my housemates.

  “She’s bleeding,” Trissie said.

  “I’ll go get the doctor,” Fred offered.

  “And the marshal,” Grace said.

  “Not the marshal,” I said, though I did not object to the doctor. I struggled to sit up, and Ida Mae helped me. “It was only snowballs.”

  “Fred, go get the buggy and bring it here,” Ida Mae said. “It’ll be faster to take her to the doctor ourselves.”

  “Can you stand?” Trissie asked. “You shouldn’t be on the cold ground.”

  I nodded. The blow to my head did not worry me much. I
had some experience with head wounds, and I knew they bled more than they hurt. Before I could speak, though, Grace said, “You take that side, Ida Mae,” and she grabbed my right hand and heaved with all her strength.

  My arm felt torn in two. I screamed, fell back down, and curled myself into a ball of pain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  FRED BROUGHT THE doctor to me after all, since climbing into the buggy proved impossible, and I refused to allow Fred and Grace to lift me up. The boarding house was only a block away. The women escorted me home, while Fred rode off in the buggy to collect Dr. Keating.

  We waited in the parlor. I half lay on the divan while Trissie pressed a cloth to my forehead and Grace sat in the corner and brooded.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I told her for the third time. “I hurt it when I fell.”

  “I made it worse,” Grace said.

  “You didn’t,” I said, though I knew she had. Hot waves of pain throbbed in my wrist, and I could feel it swelling beneath the flannel bandage. Ida Mae served dinner in the dining room to Cora and Jane, but she poked her head into the parlor every few minutes to say “I’ve turned up the heat,” or “Do you want me to bring you some grub?” or “I don’t know what’s taking Fred so long.” I wondered the last myself. I felt weak and wounded and scared for my arm. Adelaide would be competent and cheerful, and I longed for her comforting presence.

  When the door finally opened, though, it was not Adelaide’s voice I heard, but a stranger’s. I opened my eyes and sat up. A tall man with white hair entered the parlor.

  “What do we have here, eh? Good thing you’re bleeding, miss, or I’d have trouble figuring out who the patient is. You’re all white as sheets.”

  “Miss Chumley is your patient, doctor,” Grace said, rising up to join him in looming over me. “She’ll need stitches, no doubt, and you’ll want to take a look at her arm. It’s broken, I’m sure of it. I did it. I admit it. I didn’t mean to, but it’s all my fault.”