Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse

by Faith Sullivan

  The day being warm, the windows in the passenger car were raised. From one of these, an arm extended, reaching down toward her, palm upturned and holding—she saw as she drew near—a fruit, orange, but smaller than she knew an orange to be.

  “Apricot,” the man said.

  Nell had never seen an apricot. Dazed, she could only thank him with a hand uplifted in farewell. In the other hand lay the apricot, golden and pink-tinged and warm, the surface, like her own flesh, at once firm yet yielding.

  Hadn’t she known that trains carried riches? Here were riches lying in her hand—a story complete in itself, an apricot unblemished and wafting the perfume of sunlight unending.

  Mam should have a bite of it, Nell thought, but when she raised the fruit to her mouth, extracting the sweet juice, she forgot everything but the succulent meat of it.

  When only the rough pit remained, she sucked it clean and dropped it into her pocket, a tangible memory of surpassing delight. . . .

  Now, under this apricot moon: surpassing delight once more. A dog barked across town, and a rooster woke to crow out of time. Nearer, from between the buildings of Main Street, the faint sounds of the piano at Reagan’s filtered toward them. “In the Good Old Summer Time,” jaunty and sad. Nearer yet, luna moths flung themselves against the gazebo screens, petitioning.

  Later, Juliet announced, “I have baked beans and cold chicken.” She stood.

  “I’ll carry a lamp for you,” Nell told her, taking one from the table, and also, from beneath it, the extra card that explained where the deck had been manufactured, and where to send away for another, concluding, “Wishing you luck in cards and love.”

  In the kitchen, pulling a platter from the icebox, Juliet observed, “John is a nice fellow, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. ‘Easy’ is the way Cora described him.” Nell slipped the card into the bodice of her dress.

  Later, as the party broke up, John Flynn said, “I’ll walk you home. Saturday night, you never know what you might run into downtown.”

  Now, with the echoing sound of their steps on the wooden sidewalk, the two strolled along Main Street. The businesses were all dark except for Reagan’s and, further on, the Harvester Arms. The few gas streetlamps burned dimly, their light casting no shadows.

  At the foot of Nell’s stairs, John stopped and said, “Been a long while since I had such a good time on Saturday night. You’re a crackerjack whist player. Would you be willing to try it again next Saturday at my place—if I can pull a foursome together?”

  Nell laughed. “Yes, certainly.”

  They shook hands, and Nell climbed the stairs, waving from the landing. Crackerjack.

  chapter twenty-two

  IN THIS WAY John and Nell fell into a routine of Saturday-night foursomes. With Flynn, Nell felt moored to something strong and large minded. She was liberated to be witty occasionally and to have opinions. He was chivalrous and affectionate without being amorous. On their second evening of whist, he noted that he was fifteen years her senior, and she took that to mean that he had no romantic expectations. A relief, really, since she didn’t plan to marry again.

  But best of all, Hilly liked John. His new friend gave him several volumes of Horatio Alger and took him for buggy rides in the country, visiting farms that Flynn owned. A town boy, Hilly returned from these outings with tales to tell:

  “I was this close to Mr. Jessup’s bull.”

  “You be careful when you’re around bulls,” Nell cautioned.

  “There was a fence between us but still, the bull did look pretty mad. And he pawed the ground and put his head down like this.”

  Or: “Mrs. Schoonover showed me how to gather eggs. Sometimes the hens don’t like you to take ’em, but I was brave, John said.”

  And, “Did you know the milk we buy, some of it comes from one of John’s farms? They let me try to milk a cow, but nothing came out.” The relationship extended beyond field trips, however. John bought Hilly a chessboard and taught him to play. Then Hilly taught Grandpa Hapgood, ensuring himself a back-up partner.

  To John, Nell could only say, “You’re a good man.”

  “He’s a good lad,” John replied. “Very serious. I call him ‘the Professor.’”

  In the second week of May 1907, the third-grade boys were restless, the girls dreamy. No one wanted to correct geography papers. In the hall, beside the door, Nell ushered in the last of the stragglers from recess. Behind her, in the classroom, Berma Bentine stifled a whimper. Nell turned.

  Young Gus Rabel stood by his desk, back to the door. Berma sat across the aisle, massaging her right arm. In the back of the room, little Anders Holm was saying, “I’m telling Mrs. Stillman.”

  “You do, and I’ll twist her arm till it breaks.”

  “What’s going on here?” Nell asked Berma.

  Gus swung around and sat down, all nonchalance.

  Berma shook her head. “Nothin’.”

  “Gus.” Motioning the boy into the hall and closing the door behind them, Nell held Gus’s cold gaze with her own.

  “Nothin’. You heard her. She said I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “You and I both know better. What did you do?”

  “She kicked me.”

  “Berma has never kicked anyone.”

  “Well, she called me names.”

  “Do you think the principal will buy that? Would your mother?”

  “Don’t tell ’em,” the boy cried. “Please, don’t tell ’em.”

  “I want to know why you do these things. Last week you told Phyllis you were going to set fire to her cat.”

  “I dunno.” He’d begun to snivel, and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve though no tears had gathered. “I dunno. I can’t help it. Somethin’ gets inta me. Maybe the devil?” From beneath his brows, his eyes calculated whether this was selling.

  “That won’t do, Gus.”

  “But somethin’ does get inta me. Maybe not the devil, but somethin’.” A further thought occurred to him. “And I’m too big. I’m the biggest in the class. Maybe if I wasn’t so big, I’d be better.”

  “Big can cut both ways. Heroes protect smaller children; bullies pick on them. Which would you rather be?”

  “I dunno. A hero, I guess.”

  “Next time there’s mischief or I just hear of mischief, you’re off to the principal’s office. Do you understand? Do you? Now, go in there and apologize to Berma for whatever you did.” She turned him around and opened the door. Three weeks until school let out. Nell would warn the fourth-grade teacher. Something was wrong there.

  When Hilly passed into Nell’s third-grade class in September, he faced a fresh set of problems. Because Nell was his teacher, if she gave him an A, deserved as it might be, boys called him teacher’s pet. Nor did he enjoy the roughhousing the bigger boys got up to after school. They all planned to be the next Jim Corbett or Jack Johnson.

  To avoid confrontations, Hilly remained in the classroom after school, doing homework. This did nothing to enhance his reputation. John Flynn showed Hilly some wrestling moves and how to keep one’s dukes up, but Hilly had an exaggerated notion of the harm he might inflict and was loath to fight. That was fine with Nell.

  Throughout third grade, Hilly spared his mother knowledge of the bullying and teasing: shoves on the stairs, elbowing in the cloakroom, taunts on the dusty patch of playground—“Hey, guys, it’s Milly! Little Milly Stillman.”

  Hilly wouldn’t fight, but he dreamed of glory that would cow these bullies. Recently the Volunteer Fire Department had organized a kitten-ball team and staked out a playing field beneath Bacall’s Hill, at the edge of the village. Benny Knobler was currently the pitcher. Though a fine tinsmith, Benny was only a fair pitcher; nonetheless, he was becoming a celebrity among the town’s kitten-ball enthusiasts. If Hilly learned the art of pitching—and maybe with John’s help this summer he could make a start—in a few years he would be a whizbang pitcher and local hero.

  But that summer of 1907, on
a Sunday afternoon seemingly too cloudless for disappointment, Nell and friends were gathered in Laurence and Juliet’s backyard for a picnic, some of them in the gazebo, others at a table under a black maple.

  At the table, John was laughing at the question George Lundeen had asked. “My God, do you have to ask? Democrat, of course. I’m a wild Irishman.”

  “That is a damned fact,” George said. “But the legislature?”

  “Blame my boy, Paul. He’s a noise up there in St. Paul politics, and the Democrats are looking to pick up an out-state seat. Old Soren Jansen’s retiring, thank God, and the Party thinks I might pick up this district.”

  From her wheelchair at the end of the table, Cora said, “John, we don’t want to lose you here.”

  “I’ll be here, running my practice, looking after the farms, except during the session. It’s only a few months a year.” He turned to Nell. “What d’ya think, darlin’? Do I have your vote?”

  She laughed. “You would, if women could vote. But I’m like Cora. I’m afraid we’ll lose you.”

  Nearby, Hilly tossed a rubber ball back and forth with little Laurence. Hearing John’s plans, he realized pitching kitten ball wasn’t going to be the answer to his problems after all.

  chapter twenty-three

  FOR MUCH OF THE NEXT YEAR, as Cora and Nell had feared, they did lose John. He was gone frequently, laying the groundwork for his legislative run.

  Nell missed his verve and optimism. Without him, life was paler and somehow less defined. She missed asking his opinion, hearing his assurances. He was a bulwark. Without his company, she was back to feeling a stigmatized schoolteacher.

  Often he slipped into her mind late in the afternoon, when the dismissal bell had emptied the classrooms and the building had settled into its evening rest; when only the tread of the janitor measuring the length of the hall again and again with his wide dust mop, or the tick of the clock high on the wall behind her desk, broke the solid silence.

  As she graded papers, she’d look up, tapping the pencil against her chin and wondering what John would think of this student’s answer or of that one’s. How he’d laugh to hear Mamie Madden’s response to the question, What do you want to be when you grow up? “I want to be a wife,” she’d written, “and have three childrun and some of the modurn conivances.”

  When asked what an example of modern convenience might be, the girl had replied, “A store-bought broom, for one thing!”

  On such an afternoon, early in October, Nell set aside both her grade book and thoughts of John Flynn, then rose and checked the floor for trash. Slipping into a sweater and pulling together a pile of spelling papers, she locked the door behind her and left. Strange, she thought. Hilly hadn’t shown up after school to walk her home. Well, he was in fourth grade now, possibly growing too sophisticated for such activities.

  When she passed Seidman’s Pharmacy, it was nearly five, according to the clock in the store window. If she hurried, she could stop for mail. Leaving the post office with a grubby-looking envelope added to the stack of school papers, she crossed Main Street and climbed the stairs to the apartment. The inside door stood open. “Hilly?” she called, closing the screen behind her.

  A muffled “What?” from the direction of his bedroom.

  Setting aside the envelope and schoolwork, she knocked on his bedroom door. As a rule, the door was open unless he was dressing.

  “May I come in?”

  Hilly was lying on the bed with a kitchen towel bunched in front of his nose and mouth.

  Alarmed, Nell sat down beside him, pulling his hand away from his face. “Oh, dear,” she said, “you’ve been in a fight.” His nose and upper lip were swollen and bleeding. “Come out to the kitchen and I’ll clean you up.”

  Afterward, sitting at the table, she said, “I don’t think the nose is broken, and the lip is only cut on the inside, so that’ll be okay. You won’t have a scar. Who did this?”

  “Ozzie Arndt.”

  Fifth-grade son of Adolph Arndt, school-board member.

  “How did it start?”

  But Hilly simply shrugged and didn’t answer. She wanted to question him further, but someone was at the door.

  “John! Am I glad to see you.”

  “I hope you’re not sitting down to supper. I’m on my way from work and thought I’d drop this off for Hilly.” He indicated a rolled-up sheet of paper.

  “We haven’t seen you since the picnic! Have a seat,” Nell told him, holding open the door, then called, “Hilly, John is here.” Turning to the lawyer, she explained, “He’s been in a fight. He’ll be embarrassed.”

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about, Professor,” Flynn said when the boy appeared in the doorway, reluctant and trying not to show his face.

  “Black eye?” John asked.

  Hilly shook his head.

  “His nose and lip are swollen,” Nell offered.

  “That all? Come on out. I’ve got something for you.” John removed the string from around the parcel and unfurled the sheet, revealing a map. “Remember you telling me you wanted to see the world? I recall you mentioned India because of The Jungle Book. If you tack this on the wall of your room, think of the plans you can make.” He handed the map to Hilly.

  Hilly cast him a macabre lopsided smile. “Thank you,” he slurred.

  “So, tell me, did you fight back?” John asked.

  Staring down at the map in his hands, Hilly shook his head.

  “Why was that? Did the fella take you from behind?”

  “No, sir. He came right up and said he was going to lick me.”

  John nodded. “But you didn’t put up your dukes and give him what for?”

  “No, sir. I was afraid I might put his eye out.”

  John reflected. “If you don’t want to fight—whoever it is—that’s your business, Professor. But at least put your dukes up next time, so you don’t get your nose broken, OK? Your mother’d take after me with a carpet beater if you got your nose broken.”

  chapter twenty-four

  THE STRANGE, GRUBBY ENVELOPE had fallen behind the kitchen table and been forgotten in the ado surrounding Hilly’s nosebleed and cut lip. A week passed before Nell moved the table to sweep. On the envelope, “Mrs. Stilman” and “Harvester, Minnesota” were printed in a childlike hand. Setting the broom aside, Nell lifted the corner of the flap and eased it open, extracting a single sheet of lined paper.

  “Jezzabel.”

  For a few seconds Nell was merely amused, but gradually the intent dawned. As if the page harbored a fatal disease, she recoiled. The paper floated to the oilcloth. Both heartbeat and breath faltered as she gripped the edge of the table, lowering her body onto a kitchen chair.

  Who?

  Later, when Hilly was down for the night, she sat in the rocker, raking her mind for answers. At first she thought the note might concern Elvira. But surely not—Elvira had been gone for several years now.

  John? Had it anything to do with John? Did the writer imagine that Nell was his mistress? Anger blotched her face and throat, and she pressed fists hard to her breast. John mustn’t know about this.

  Over the next year, John Michael Flynn threw himself heart and body into the political arena, and in the fall of 1908 the district rewarded his labor with a seat in the state House of Representatives in St. Paul.

  The following Saturday, George and Cora threw a victory party, and the town came out—even the Republicans. A harvest table sagged beneath washtubs of Reagan’s beer, bratwursts and buns, sauerkraut, coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, and an array of cakes.

  In the parlor, a crowd clustered around the piano singing “In My Merry Oldsmobile” and “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie.” In the backyard, faces candescent in firelight gathered around an emptied oil barrel stacked with burning logs. As the logs shifted, they spat sparks that flew toward a nonpartisan moon shining cold and clear over a snowless November.

  Nell drank in lungfuls of tangy wood scent. Beside h
er, a nearly ten-year-old Hilly squirmed and danced with exhilaration. “Isn’t it exciting? Aren’t you happy?”

  Nell smiled. “I’m happy for John.” She hadn’t actually prayed that John would lose the election, but she wouldn’t have shed a tear had that happened. That was her little secret.

  John moved among the guests indoors and out, thanking them for their support, lingering to inquire about families, crops, businesses. No political palaver: He would never have a great stock of that. In the backyard, he worked his way toward Nell and Hilly. “What d’ya think, darlin’?”

  “Congratulations are in order.” Though she felt shame for begrudging his victory, she would not say that she was happy. And she would never mention the “Jezzabel” note. Evil was fluid and could seep into places, like John’s career, where darkness was unearned. One must throw a wall around it.

  Once established in St. Paul the following January, John was pressed into service. A popular speaker, inevitably he was drawn into the social life of politics. A new man of taste and intelligence was not a glut on the market. In addition, John’s son, Paul, and his family lived within walking distance of the capitol building. John would of course spend much free time with them.

  In John’s absence, Nell read. And read. Eliot and Balzac and Trollope and yet more Austen, starting over when she’d read the last’s novels. Where would she be without the Lundeens’ library?

  And then Nell discovered Chekhov. First the short stories on loan from Juliet, then the plays after writing John and asking if he could secure them. Though she’d read some Chekhov before, it was in this new reading that she suddenly saw what he was saying. So it is, often, that in the passage of time a story takes on new meaning. These were people she knew, Harvester people! Set down in the provinces of Russia they might be, but she daily nodded to many of them on Main Street or sat beside them at St. Boniface, people with awful longings, a sense that life was happening elsewhere, that this little world was suffocating them. Nell had seen all that in pair after pair of eyes; she had witnessed it in young fellows stumbling out of Reagan’s on Saturday night, shoulders bent.