Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse

by Faith Sullivan

  With retirement would come more leisure for this blessed passion. Nell hoped she had left her charges with a love of reading, one of the few things they could count on in life. The years could rob them of friends and farms, of youth and health, but books would endure.

  She eased deeper into the chair and turned the page.

  chapter fifty-five

  HILLY CARRIED HIS HARMONICA to the cemetery twice a week while the weather held. Sometimes Nell accompanied him; more often he went alone, the walk perhaps reminding him of those long-ago morning runs. Invariably he returned with a fresh serenity.

  Adolph Arndt reported to Nell that Hilly first played the harmonica for friends in the Catholic cemetery—Herbert, John, and Grandpa Hapgood—then walked next door to play for Protestants—Juliet, Laurence, and the others. From the radio, Hilly had acquired new tunes, among them “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and “Lulu’s Back in Town.” But it was “Sweet Leilani” that especially tickled Adolph.

  In mid-October Eudora suffered a mild stroke, leaving her right side and speech slightly impaired. She had to relinquish her library job and thus the pride of having her own pocket money. Worse, she and her daughter-in-law now lived cheek by jowl.

  Nell came to visit almost daily, bringing gossip and fresh reading material. By the following spring, her friend was walking outdoors with a cane.

  But Eudora’s resentment of her situation did not abate. Her body had betrayed her. And her son was a veterinarian, instead of a doctor or lawyer. But far worse, he was married to that shallow, pretentious “debutante.” “If it weren’t for my darling grandson, I’d put strychnine in her coffee.”

  Larry Lundeen filled in at the library until the Board could locate a replacement. As fortune would have it, Desiree Navarin, whose husband owned the filling station next to the depot, had a library degree and was glad to step in.

  In the spring of 1939, the Saturday before Easter, Stella Wheeler ran over young Gus Rabel’s dog, killing it. Not that she had meant to.

  “The poor thing,” Eudora said—speaking of Stella—“she showed up at our door with the dog in her arms. It must have weighed at least half what she does, and she’d carried it for blocks.”

  Nell adjusted the telephone receiver.

  “Unfortunately,” Eudora continued, “Brenda answered the door. She took one look at the dog and said, ‘Dead as a beached mackerel.’ I went to the back door and called Ed, but the damage was done. Mrs. Wheeler just went to pieces, said she’d never drive again.”

  “She’s fragile.”

  “Everyone knows that dreadful dog chased cars,” Eudora fumed. “He should have been hit years ago.”

  A few days later, Nell called on Stella Wheeler around eleven, when Sally would be at school. A copy of Anne of Green Gables she’d found at Bender’s Second Hand was her excuse.

  After knocking at both the front and back doors, she tried the knobs and found the back door unlocked. The kitchen was untidy though not unduly so, as if a child kept house there. Wandering into the dining room, Nell called, “Stella?” She repeated her cry several times at the foot of the stairs.

  Above, someone stirred. “Yes?” Stella’s voice was thick and fuzzy, just awakened from sleep. Minutes later, she appeared at the top of the stairs, tying the sash of her robe. “Mrs. Stillman,” she said, suddenly alarmed. “Is it about the dog?”

  “No.”

  “Please . . . sit down.” Stella descended, combing a hand through hair oily and unwashed.

  Nell sat in a wing chair. “I brought a copy of Anne of Green Gables,” she said, setting the book on a side table. “I thought Sally might enjoy it.”

  Still standing and fussing with her sash, Stella nodded. Finally, she said, “I don’t have coffee or . . . or . . .” She waved a hand toward the kitchen.

  “I didn’t come for coffee, dear, only to drop the book off. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “I was very sleepy this morning. I need a lot of sleep.”

  “Maybe you need vitamins or cod-liver oil. Have you seen a doctor?”

  Stella started as though she’d been struck. “No, no.” She grew tearful.

  Nell rose, crossing to embrace her, but Stella stepped back. “I’m all right. I just need sleep.”

  “Of course. I’ll be going.” Nell was afraid she might say or do something to upset the poor creature further. “I’ll be going,” she said again, turning toward the front door.

  The following afternoon, Nell had just started brewing tea when she heard cries on the outside stairs. Throwing the door open, she discovered Hilly, spittle flying from his open mouth, his shirt torn, his jacket and belt missing.

  “What’s happened? What is it?” He couldn’t speak.

  “Are you hurt?” She followed as he fled to his bedroom and huddled on the bed. “Tell me!”

  Mewling, he shook his head and rocked like a child.

  “Did someone beat you?”

  He shook his head again.

  Unconvinced, Nell dropped down beside him. “Let’s put the quilt over you.”

  Rising, she murmured, “Hot tea. Plenty of sugar.”

  He’d surely been attacked, though there was no blood. Her first thought was young Gus Rabel. But only minutes earlier she’d heard Gus downstairs, laughing with a customer.

  When she returned to Hilly’s room, he was asleep with the sheet pulled over his head.

  Was Hilly’s attacker the person who wrote the notes?

  Though it went against her soul, Nell wanted to take down the gun and shoot the devil in the foot. Let him hobble for the rest of his life.

  There was little point in talking to Constable Wall. Hilly wouldn’t discuss what had happened.

  His cemetery trips ended.

  chapter fifty-six

  ONCE A MONTH, until it closed for the summer, the Majestic movie theater held a drawing called Bank Night. Following the evening’s movie, ticket stubs were drawn and prizes awarded—a set of dishes, a three-piece suit, cash. The June drawing featured a grand prize of two hundred and fifty dollars and filled the house with folks still Depression-squeezed.

  In June 1940, Arlene Erhardt won the 250-dollar grand prize, bought a secondhand Ford coupe, and began a typing service, tearing around the county helping businesses that couldn’t afford an office girl. For two years, Lark had been telling the Stillmans how her mother was teaching herself to type on an old machine that the railway had thrown out. Well, here was good news!

  Nell marveled. This was the sort of canny ambition she had admired in Agatha Nightingale. She thrilled to think of women getting out in the world, finding a way to do something. However, from Lark, Nell also learned that Willie Erhardt was not happy about the new arrangment.

  Since Hilly no longer walked out to the cemetery, Arlene Erhardt took Lark and Hilly for a ride every week in the back of the old pickup, stopping later for cake or ice cream. Lark always lugged one of her books along to read to Hilly. Though only seven, she read as well as most third graders. “Mama made flash cards for some of the words in the books,” she explained one day, licking ice cream from the back of a spoon.

  Hilly relaxed with Arlene and Lark, and Nell felt that he was more intelligible than any time since he’d come home from the war. Perhaps the return to normalcy was at last beginning. Even Arlene had noticed. “He’s calmer,” she said, “easier to understand.”

  But during the fall of that year, war dispatches from Europe grew increasingly dark—German planes were bombing London day and night. Nell tried to spare Hilly, turning off newscasts and hiding the newspaper, but he possessed an antenna tuned to the war. Gradually, he grew more remote, until he no longer joined the little girls when they visited.

  Through the remainder of 1940 and most of 1941, his only entertainments were Your Hit Parade and his radio “stories”—Just Plain Bill, Our Gal Sunday, and others. He still heard the voices of dead friends coming to him from someplace beyond the grave. He refused even the rides in the pickup. />
  After Labor Day 1941, Lark and Sally Wheeler entered third grade. Once the school day had ended, they climbed the stairs to report to Nell. “I wish you were our teacher,” Sally complained, tossing her books beside the door. “You taught third grade, didn’t you?”

  “I’m sure your teacher is every bit as good as I was. Probably better.”

  “But she doesn’t know us like you do,” Sally said.

  She doesn’t know that people call your mother a lunatic, Nell thought, and that children are teasing you.

  Arlene had kept Nell abreast of Stella’s condition, which was deteriorating. “One set or the other of the grandparents are there a good deal, helping out, particularly the Wheelers—they live just over in Worthington.”

  Today, a freckled ragamuffin accompanied Sally and Lark to tea, Beverly Ridza, who peppered her conversation with “Godsakes” and worse, while the other two girls rolled their eyes. In addition to colorful language, Beverly came with a hearty appetite, starting with the cookie plate. “Mmmm. These’re good,” she said of the store-bought arrowroots.

  “Well, help yourself,” Nell told her.

  “Only don’t take too many,” Lark said. “We mustn’t eat Mrs. Stillman out of house and home.” The very voice of Arlene Erhardt.

  Nell poured more hot water into the teapot, and they all had a second cup. Later, as the girls were gathering their belongings, Beverly asked, “C’n I come again?”

  “Always,” Nell told her, handing Lark her language workbook. Out on the stairs, Beverly shouted, “And she meant it!”

  A day or two after, President Roosevelt rushed warships to Britain. That evening, Arlene showed up unannounced and without Lark.

  “Does it mean war?” she asked. At the word “war,” Hilly flung out of the room.

  “My God, I’m sorry,” Arlene apologized. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Well, the news does sound bad,” Nell said, shaking her head.

  “Poor Stella called this afternoon. She’s terrified that Donald might be called up. She’s . . . I don’t want to say it.”

  As in years past, Nell bought a small Christmas tree in late November, setting it up on a table in the living room. Normally, Hilly decorated the tree with pictures cut from magazines. This year, he hung back; Life and Look were full of war images. At Nell’s insistence, he eventually cut out photos from an old calendar, including one of the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. He had always been much attached to the Roosevelts and to their small dog, whom he called Falala.

  On a Saturday evening in early December, Nell asked, “Would you like me to read to you?”

  Hilly shook his head.

  “Shall we turn on the radio? It’s almost time for Your Hit Parade.” But no; he kissed her cheek and went to bed. Nell turned on the radio anyway, hoping the music reached him.

  Following barmaid’s Mass the next day, Nell reheated meat loaf and sliced it for sandwiches. She and Hilly were just sitting down at the table when the town whistle blew, blaring uninterrupted. What now?

  At length she rose, wiped her hands on her apron, and crossed to the telephone. “Operator?”

  “Turn on the radio, Mrs. Stillman.”

  “. . . about seven this morning, Honolulu time,” an alarmingly calm voice was saying. “I repeat, planes of the Japanese air force have bombed Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands early this morning. . . . The United States has suffered heavy losses of men, ships, and airplanes. . . .” Escaping, Hilly knocked over a chair.

  He refused to leave his room, and lay cocooned in his quilt. In the late afternoon, Nell carried a tray of tea and toast to him, but he only turned to the wall. Setting the tray on the bureau, she sat beside his hunched body. The framed photo of Silly Benjamin lay beside the pillow.

  “Sylvester’s on your mind,” Nell said.

  Hilly nodded.

  “I can only imagine what it’s like—being in the war together. Not like any other friendship. But remember, Sylvester won’t have to be in any more wars. And neither will you.”

  She placed a hand on his back, hoping to connect. He lay curled in a little boat that was pulling away from her shore.

  In the early evening, he cried out from sleep, “Silly! Wait!”

  Once more, she rubbed his back and felt his old shrapnel wound through the flannel. “They won’t make you go to war, darling boy.”

  Sitting in Hilly’s rocker, she stayed past midnight, then drew aside the curtains, noting huge, slowly descending snowflakes. Before heading to her room, she laid a hand on his cheek. “I’ll keep you safe, and we’ll be happy.”

  He grasped her hand. “Good night, Mama.”

  The gunshot woke her. At first, it was part of a dream, then it was real. She threw back the quilt. Hilly’s room was empty.

  He lay on the outside landing, blood splattered across the freshly fallen snow, the German revolver beside him.

  chapter fifty-seven

  HER DARLING BOY WAS GONE, the boy she’d sworn to protect, the boy she loved more than all the world. Crooning and moaning, she held his body until someone came—she didn’t know who—leading her inside and using the telephone, she thought, because others came and carried her boy away. Someone made tea. Sometime in the still-dark hours, sitting in the green chair, she fell into a deep sleep.

  The next day, Father Delias answered the rectory door, ushering Nell into his office. Though Father Delias had in the past struck Nell as a warm, even a laughing man—unlike his predecessor, Father Gerrold—the rectory had a chill, impersonal feel. The walls were white, the woodwork dark and severe, with no Doric columns or deep cornices at the ceiling. Just a simple picture molding from which hung portraits of the Pope, an Archbishop, and the bishop of the local see, each vying to look more pious than the others.

  Nell had heard from someone, maybe Anna Braun, that Father Delias had told his superiors that he’d just as soon spend his life at St. Boniface, if it was all the same to them. At the time, that had endeared him to Nell. Now, sitting across a wide mahogany desk from the priest, her hands knotted around the gloves in her lap, she felt herself a petitioner in the anteroom of a peculiarly cold hell.

  “Even though Hilly was a decorated war hero,” she said, “no high Mass. Just something simple.”

  “Nell, this is hard. I’m very sorry about Hilly. But he can’t be buried from the Church,” Father Delias said. “I hope you understand.” He leaned toward her across his desk, hand extended.

  She recoiled. “I don’t understand. Hilly was a good boy.”

  “No question. But he was a suicide. It’s tragic,” he said with feeling, “but you’ll have to make other arrangements.”

  Nell stood abruptly.

  “If it were my decision . . . but I have my orders.” The priest’s smile was sympathetic but dismissive.

  Nell left the rectory without another word, her remaining belief in “Mother Church” gone. No Mother would refuse to bury her son.

  Early that morning, old Gus Rabel had cleared the deep, blood-soaked snow from the landing where Hilly had lain and from which two volunteer firemen had carried him away. Now, a thin film of snow floating in the air, left over from the previous night’s fall, dusted the doorstep, where Nell found a familiar-looking envelope. How could they?

  The flap was not sealed. “I’m sorry,” the note read.

  When Arlene Erhardt heard of the priest’s refusal, she hurled a drinking glass across her kitchen. Then she drove from church to church, pounding on doors, inquiring whether the minister would bury Hilly. This Nell knew from Eudora. Neither of the two Lutherans would. Nor the Baptists. Nor the Presbyterian, whose flock met in a Grange Hall in the country. “It wouldn’t be proper.” “It’s not our place.”

  Finally, the ancient Reverend Norton of the Methodists, on the eve of his retirement, agreed to say a funeral service and bury Hilly in the Protestant cemetery. The ceremony was simple, attendance sparse, many unsure whether it was sinful to be present, though they were ex
quisitely curious. Nell’s little crowd was faithful, however. Even the three little girls came, with all their parents—except for Willie Erhardt who, Lark revealed later, had insisted that showing up was a mortal sin.

  To add mystery, in a back pew, wearing the uniform of the last war, was an officer, ruddy faced and with graying hair. No one knew him, and he slipped away after the burial without introducing himself.

  At the end of the day, Nell sat in the chair Hilly had bought her, caressing its arms, and thinking again about death, his death, any death. Death was the great mystery. A current was turned off. Where did that vanished power go? Was it there, vibrating in the air around her like a musical instrument whose note is no longer audible but whose strings still hum soundlessly? Finally, she turned in, wondering what that godlike figure Jeeves would have to say about all of this.

  In the days following the funeral, there was a to-do about what was proper, canonically speaking, regarding burial of a suicide, this especially among those clergymen who’d refused Arlene. But Eudora Barnstable wrote an impassioned letter to the Standard Ledger to scotch such nonsense, followed by others from Larry Lundeen, Apollo Shane, and John Flynn’s son, Paul. As time passed, a trickle of shame oozed into the heart of the community. “But only into the left ventricle,” snapped Eudora.

  On the Sunday morning following Hilly’s burial, a hesitant knock called Nell to her door. To her surprise, Stella Wheeler stood there, rumpled and shivering, looking unsure, her face beseeching, as if she might be turned away.

  She handed Nell a package of Fig Newtons.

  Stella had been at Hilly’s funeral, weeping with painful intensity, confirming Nell’s belief that the damaged woman had felt a special kinship with Hilly. Leading her in, Nell pulled the rocker near the little stove. Tossing Stella’s coat on the daybed, she told Stella, “Sit there and warm yourself. I’ll make tea.”

  But no sooner were they settled with tea and Fig Newtons, Stella intensely ill at ease, than someone was pounding at the door: Lark Erhardt, out of breath, eyes frantic. What on earth? “If Papa comes, don’t tell him I’m here.”