“Goo’night,” Mr. Shaw croaked. He grabbed Susan’s hand pulling her from her wicker chair. Numbly they crawled up the stairs. Mr. Hollister’s denunciation flowed on behind them, unabated.
“Remember,” Mr. Shaw muttered thickly, nodding in the direction of the Walkers’ house.
“Mm-mm,” she murmured, feeling too bludgeoned to know whether she was saying yes or no.
They crawled into their respective beds. ‘Daddy can wake us up,’ she thought, falling instantly asleep. After an interval of darkness she found herself in the elevator with him, going down, sinking away from the ruin of her hopes. She raised her face to cry out. The light bulb in the ceiling blazed so brightly that she had to throw her hand up to cover her eyes. The movement woke her up. Her room was golden with sunshine, and outside a rooster shouted that she had been reprieved.
8. Singular Behavior of Maggie
… saved for another day, and I thought it was a good omen. Daddy said yes we could go back to the Walkers’ for tea now, but we would take the elevator first chance we got. I decided not to let there be a chance. We went over at 10:30. Vicky and Bobbie opened the door and the minute I saw them I knew something awful had happened …
“It’s fate, Daddy! Supposed we had been able to stay awake last night until it was safe to take the elevator — think about how worn out we’d be now! I’d be falling asleep in class, and you’d be making such awful mistakes at work that your company would lose thousands of dollars!”
He was not amused. But she was too happy to care. It did seem that fate was intervening in their favor, and if her father couldn’t see it that way, it was because he hadn’t realized yet what was good for him.
“Well, anyway,” she went on, “since we are still here, and since we didn’t get a chance to refuse Mrs. Walker’s invitation, we might as well go there for tea, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he answered, so readily that she was startled. Had he changed his mind? “And,” he continued, “if there’s any chance of getting to that elevator while we’re there — any chance at all — we’re going to grab it.”
“Oh,” she said.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t see why we even have to wait for a chance. Why can’t we just make our apologies and say goodbye and go?”
She was aghast. “You mean right in front of everybody?”
“Sure, why not? Robert and Victoria know all about it — they’ve seen it in operation, haven’t they? They could explain it to Mrs. Walker. We could explain it to her, for that matter.”
“Oh no!”
“Why not, for heaven’s sake?”
“Be-be-because,” she stammered. Her mind was racing to think of some way to cut off this dreadful line of reasoning. “Because … I mean we just can’t. It’s her house, and she — she … Would you really be cruel enough to give poor Mrs. Walker that kind of shock? ‘Oh, pardon us, Mrs. Walker, we have to go now,’ and then a wall in her own house opens up and swallows us alive. That’s what it would look like to her, even if we explained it to her. Why, Daddy, she’s under such a strain already, something like that could drive her right over the edge!”
“Oh, all right, all right,” he said, rubbing his face. “Not in front of her, then: I’m willing to spare her feelings. But if she leaves us to ourselves for any reason, or if we can think of any excuse to leave her — down we go!”
She sighed, hoping that he would take it as agreement on her part, and they were silent for a while. “We’d better get ready,” she said at last. “Oh, I got you something yesterday, Daddy, let me show you.” She went to her room and brought back the shaving things: a deadly-looking straight razor, a soap mug, a brush, and a honing strop. They were a great success, particularly the razor.
“Oh, wow, thank you, chick! This is really beautiful. My grandfather had one like this.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Oh, I have a good idea — I used to watch Grandpa.” He pinched his nose and twisted his mouth halfway around his face.
She giggled, and said, “I’ll get some hot water.”
Mrs. Hollister apologetically pointed out the kettle simmering on an enormous black range. On a nearby shelf a porcelain clock with cupids and roses painted on it said 9:23. Not much more than an hour until … ‘Something’s got to happen this time,’ she thought.
She hurried back upstairs with the kettle, and they had a good morning wash-up. While Mr. Shaw plied his new razor, Susan went to her room, tore a piece of paper out of her diary, and wrote on it: “Don’t let your Mama leave the room under any circumstances. This is very important.” She folded it small and put it in her pocket. ‘I’ll just slip this to Vicky or Bobbie as we go in,’ she thought. ‘We are not going down that elevator until I’m convinced the whole thing is absolutely hopeless.’
“Only one nick!” Mr. Shaw announced. “Not so bad for a beginner, eh? Say, chick,” he lowered his voice, “you didn’t see anything of Uncle Sam Windbag downstairs, did you?”
“No, I think he’s gone.”
“He’d better be! I must say, though, he’s as good as a handful of sleeping pills. I slept better last night than I have in years.”
They went down to a welcome breakfast of ham, eggs, fried potatoes and biscuits.
At twenty-five minutes after ten they strolled over to the Walkers’. Susan drew the mild summer air deeply into her lungs. This was it! Her heart was beginning to thud, and she had to suppress a desire to bounce at her father’s side like a rubber ball. Dignity, dignity! Bouncing could come later …
The double front doors were of varnished oak, with stained-glass windowpanes. The knocker was a feminine bronze hand delicately holding a ball between its thumb and two fingers. Susan lifted it and rapped once. There was a sudden murmur of voices within, a sharp exclamation, the sound of running feet. The door swung open to reveal the Walker children.
“Good morning, good morning!” the Shaws began, but their voices died at the sight of the stricken faces confronting them.
From inside the house an unfamiliar voice cried, “Robert! Victoria!”
“She’s here!” Victoria mouthed. Aloud she said, in a Deportment Class voice that was badly cracked around the edges, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Shaw. Good morning, Miss Shaw. Won’t you please come in?”
“Who?” Mr. Shaw said.
“Cousin Jane!” Victoria groaned in a whisper.
“But,” Susan murmured, “I thought she wasn’t —”
“She came by the eight-forty-seven instead of the afternoon train,” Robert whispered. “We’ve been outflanked!”
“Really, Isabelle,” the voice went on, “I am at a loss to understand this behavior in your children. You have a servant, I believe. It should be her duty to answer the door.”
With despairing glances at their guests, the Walkers ushered them in and turned toward the parlor. Susan was so numb with apprehension that she forgot the note in her pocket. Her father seemed to have something stuck in his throat. Stiff-legged, they advanced to meet the owner of that voice.
She was sitting rigidly upright on the edge of a dark green plush sofa. Her eyes transfixed them — wintry grey eyes that glittered behind steel-rimmed pince-nez glasses. Her stout figure was dressed entirely in black. Her hair was black, too, drawn tightly into a bun.
Mrs. Walker, very pale but composed, also sitting stiffly upright on the edge of her chair, said in a low voice, “Ah, there you are! So nice to see you again, Mr. Shaw, I would like you to meet my cousin, Miss Clamp.”
“A pleasure, Miss Clamp.” He tentatively offered his hand and then dropped it again as Cousin Jane inclined her head a quarter of an inch forward and said, “How do you do.” Her mouth tightened and her brows twitched together.
“Daddy!” Susan murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “Hat!”
“Oh! Ahhrrrem! I, ah —” Mr. Shaw snatched his hat off, and turned red.
Mrs. Walker didn’t seem to notice. She went on, “And this is M
r. Shaw’s daughter, Susan. Susan and my two have become great friends.”
Susan curtseyed. Cousin Jane said, “Indeed?” and gave her an arctic stare.
“Pray be seated,” Mrs. Walker said. “Maggie will be in soon with tea.”
All the available chairs were in the line of fire of Cousin Jane’s eyes. Aware that every movement was being watched, the Shaws and the Walker children sank into their seats.
“Do not loll, Victoria,” Cousin Jane said after a moment of silence. “It is not only ill-bred, but also has a detrimental effect on one’s carriage.”
Victoria blushed and jerked rigidly upright. Susan felt her own spine stiffening. Mr. Shaw, meanwhile, was having trouble deciding what to do with his hat. He threw a quick questioning glance at Susan. She signalled back that she was uncertain as he was. His chair had carved wooden arms; and after fumbling with his hat for a moment, he hung it on the end-knob of the left arm. Susan glanced at Cousin Jane, and saw her mouth and brows tightening again. “Oh, good grief!” she groaned to herself; ‘everything we do is going to be wrong …’
“Mr. Shaw!” Cousin Jane said. “You are vacationing in this vicinity, I believe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Shaw said, jumping a little and knocking his hat on the floor. He bent over and picked it up again, turning redder than before.
“It’s quite all right to leave your hat on the floor, Mr. Shaw,” Mrs. Walker said with a faint but encouraging smile. Mr. Shaw, his face purple, laid his hat on the floor. He raised himself again to find everyone looking at him. “Beautiful day,” he said, apparently squeezing the words past a grape-sized obstruction in his throat. “The aherrrrem sun — the sun’s out.”
“Yes!” Mrs. Walker said. “Such lovely weather lately. Early summer is one of my favorite times of year.”
“Clement weather is never to be trusted,” Cousin Jane said. “I expect it will rain soon.—Cease that fidgeting, Robert! Put both feet on the floor and keep your hands in your lap.—This area is noted for its high rainfall and the severity of its electrical storms. I wonder, Mr. Shaw, that you did not choose to vacation at the seaside or in the mountains. Most people resort to one or the other, I believe.”
“Well, I, ah, like the country,” Mr. Shaw said. “It’s so restful and … quiet.”
“There is a good deal of talk about the so-called virtues of country living,” Cousin Jane said with a little sniff. “I believe it is sentimental twaddle. What is worse, it is pernicious twaddle. There is a dangerous relaxation of standards in the country which encourages bad manners in the young, and eccentricities in their elders.”
Mrs. Walker turned a shade paler, but answered in a steady voice, “I realize that tea in the morning is — unusual, Cousin Jane. But the heart, after all, has its reasons that—”
“The heart, Isabelle, is the most unreliable organ in the human frame. Consulting it can lead only to sentimental excesses and improprieties — if not worse.”
“Mama is not to be blamed, Cousin Jane,” Victoria said in a low voice so low that it was nearly a whisper. “It was really my idea.”
“In-deed?” Cousin Jane slowly swiveled her head toward Victoria, who, without relaxing her backbone or indeed moving a muscle, shrank. Susan felt her face growing warm with anger. Mr. Shaw cleared his throat loudly and said:
“Oh, come now, Miss Clamp, it wasn’t such a horrendous idea! I think it was … charming.”
Cousin Jane closed her eyes. “The whimsies of unformed minds may seem charming, Mr. Shaw; but to indulge them is to invite the gravest consequences.”
Mrs. Walker said, “Well, that’s for a parent to judge, Cousin Jane. The consequence in this case is that the Shaws are here — and I don’t find that such a grave matter.” She smiled. Susan melted inside. ‘How could Daddy not be devastated by that smile?’ she thought. Mrs. Walker hurried on before Cousin Jane could interrupt, “I hope you passed a restful night, Mr. Shaw.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely, thank you. I slept like a log. Uncle S — I mean, Mr. Hollister put us both to sleep with an endless lecture on politics.”
“Oh, Mr. Hollister!” she laughed. “He is a dreadful filibusterer, isn’t he? He dabbles in land speculation, you know, and tried to get into local politics, and comes to grief in nearly everything, and then blames it all on the Republicans. One must be very firm with Mr. Hollister. I feel sorry for his poor wife.”
“Most unsuitable neighbors,” Cousin Jane said. “They are the vulgarest of the vulgar. Of course, the whole idea of moving here was a mistake, and I was opposed to it from the first. But naturally the late Mr. Walker would not listen to me. He was a stubborn and misguided man.”
“You are speaking of my husband,” Mrs. Walker said quietly.
“I apologize, Isabelle. I did not mean to single him out for any special opprobrium. All men, after all, are stubborn and misguided — when they are not merely weak and misguided.”
A pall of silence settled over them. Robert’s face wore a look of stoic blankness; he sat like a ramrod, staring straight ahead, as though he were on parade. Victoria’s expression was so miserable that Susan couldn’t bear to look any more. She glanced about the room, half-seeing things which in happier circumstances would have delighted her: a white marble fireplace; a glass case containing — jewels? — no, stuffed hummingbirds; a massive mirror whose frame was decorated with gilt bunches of grapes and carved leaves; a vase full of peacock feathers …
“Mr. Shaw!” Cousin Jane said, so suddenly that they all jumped. “May I enquire as to your line of endeavor?”
“Ah — I beg your pardon?”
Cousin Jane closed her eyes. “What do you do in the city?”
“Oh! I’m with Dexler and Feldman. We make —”
“Papa is in finance,” Susan plunged in, just in time to prevent him from saying “radio and television parts.”
“That’s right,” he said, recovering from the near-fumble. “I take care of the, ah, financial end of the business.” His face turned red.
“In-deed?” Cousin Jane said. She opened her eyes again and brought them to bear on Susan. “In my day, children never spoke until spoken to.”
“Well,” Susan muttered, “things are changing.”
“They are indeed — and changing steadily for the worse. One’s duty to maintain the highest standards becomes more burdensome every day.”
There was another silence, which was broken at last by a relieved cry from Mrs. Walker:
“Ah! Here comes Maggie with the tea.”
Mrs. Walker was looking over her shoulder. Following her gaze to a corner of the parlor, Susan noticed for the first time a tall doorway draped in green velvet portieres. She still had only a hazy notion of how the house was arranged, but it seemed to her that this doorway must open into the hall where the elevator was. A tinkling sound on the other side announced Maggie’s approach. And here she was, a plump little woman maneuvering a tray past the velvet fringes. The tray was piled high with cups and saucers and the tea pot and silverware and napkins and sugar and cream and butter and rolls. Maggie’s round freckled face was set in a frown of concentration. She advanced into the parlor step by step, her eyes fixed on the floor just ahead of her, the tip of her tongue thrust out between her tightened lips. Susan found that she was holding her breath. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same …
Ah! Maggie was going to succeed. She had reached the center of the room. Her tray hovered over the delicate cherrywood table by Mrs. Walker’s side. She lifted her face with the beginnings of a triumphant smile on it, turned as if to receive everyone’s congratulations — and caught sight of Mr. Shaw.
She gasped. Her face went white. “Mer-r-rciful hivens!” She moaned. Her eyes turned up in their sockets. The tray fell from her hands, slithered over the edge of the table, and precipitated its load to the floor with a crash. There was a second crash as Maggie fell over backwards in a dead faint.
9. Cousin Jane Prohibits
… happened aga
in, and Cousin Jane used it as an excuse to throw us out. We took a walk because we didn’t know what else to do. I began to hope again that there was still a chance, but when we got back Cousin Jane smashed my hopes probably forever …
They were all paralyzed for a moment with shock and surprise. Then Mrs. Walker jumped out of her chair. A fragment of porcelain crunched under her foot as she hurried around the wreckage to kneel by Maggie.
“Bobbie, quick! Fetch my smelling salts. I think they’re in my reticule up in my room.”
Robert dashed off, throwing one frightened glance over his shoulder as he went. They heard his feet thundering up the stairs.
Victoria leaped up and ran over to her mother, who was now rubbing Maggie’s wrists. Mrs. Walker waved her off, saying, “No, dear, I can manage for a moment. Bring a towel, will you? The tea is soaking into the rug.” Victoria darted away, wringing her hands.
Cousin Jane closed her eyes and said, “Really, Isabelle, this is distressing. That chinaware was very costly, I believe. I remember Mr. Walker’s Aunt Sophronia telling me that she had gone to a great deal of trouble to find that particular pattern.”
Mr. Shaw half rose form his chair and asked, “Can I help in some way?”
“Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Shaw, I — Please remain seated. I do hope you’ll forgive us for this little — contretemps.”
“This sort of thing,” Cousin Jane pronounced, her eyes still closed, “does not occur in well-regulated households.”
Susan jumped out of her chair, knelt on the other side of Maggie, murmured, “Please let me help,” and began to rub Maggie’s free wrist.
Mrs. Walker said, “Thank you, Susan,” and gave her a smile that had made her glow with pleasure. But pain was mixed with her feelings, too, now that she was close enough to see how hollow Mrs. Walker’s eyes looked, and how drawn her face was.
All in Good Time Page 6
