by Jane Langton
One down, one to go. But the remaining land holder was Mrs. Bewley. With pleasure John remembered the forcefulness with which she had thrown Buddy out of her house. It had been a good sign. Mrs. Bewley would surely stand like a bulwark between Buddy Whipple and the fulfillment of his repulsive plan.
Forty-Four
“OFF WE GO!” MISS PLANKTON WAVED A CHEERY GOOD-BYE TO John.
“Don’t work too hard,” said Barbara, leaning out of the car.
Virginia smiled at him, but John merely nodded good-bye, looking at her reproachfully, then stood motionless in his paint-spotted clothes, gazing after the car as it aimed itself down the driveway to begin the journey to New Haven, where Virginia and Barbara were going to take a look at some of Miss Plankton’s low-income housing units. Heaving a great sigh, John turned around and went back to the house to paint the ceiling of the dining room.
He had been working on the ceiling all summer, off and on. He had gouged out a channel where two drooping surfaces met, and filled it with Spackle. Then he had sanded it, filled it again, and sanded it again. Then he had filled in all the other cracks and sanded them and filled them in and sanded them again. Now the whole ceiling was ready for painting. The painting would be easy. After all the hard work of preparation, painting the ceiling would be nothing. John wandered around the house looking for last week’s Concord Journal, brought it back to the dining room and spread it on the floor in the corner. Setting his ladder on the newspaper, he picked up his can of Chamber White latex paint and his broad brush and set one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. Then he stepped down again and stooped over the newspaper. A name in dark print had caught his eye: ALICE BEWLEY.
What was Mrs. Bewley doing in the legal notices in the Concord Journal? She hadn’t died or something, had she? John got down on hands and knees and read the notice.
BANK AUCTION, Thursday, August 27, 2 P.M. Property on Concord Road belonging to ALICE BEWLEY to be sold to the highest bidder. House, 1.2 acres land. Auction on premises. Certified $2000 check required as deposit.
John couldn’t believe his eyes. He read the notice again. What had happened to poor old Mrs. Bewley? How could things have gone so wrong? Mrs. Bewley had been right there at home last week, still holding the fort. “Mine, mine,” she had shouted at Buddy, pushing him out the door. Well, of course, this disgusting turn of events was Buddy’s doing. Buddy was at work again, wiping out the last obstacle on the map in the way of his new road.
John jumped to his feet. What should he do? When was the auction? On Thursday, the notice said. What was today? Wednesday? No, yesterday was Wednesday. Today was Thursday! The auction was today at two in the afternoon. Two o’clock? Jesus, what time was it now? John ran to the kitchen to look at the clock. Oh, God, it was two o’clock right now. For an instant John stared at the clock. Then he made up his mind. Running his hands through his hair, he pushed open the screen door, raced down the driveway, slipped on a loose piece of asphalt, fell on his face, picked himself up and ran again, blood running down his cheek.
There were cars parked in Mrs. Bewley’s driveway and along the road, tipped at odd angles. John stopped running. His heart was thumping. In the driveway something crunched under his feet, and he looked down.
He had stepped on somebody’s glasses. But they weren’t ordinary glasses. They had a long handle. It was Mrs. Bewley’s lorgnette, the one she had stolen from Miss Plankton. What was it doing here on the driveway, all smashed into pieces like that?
Grimly John picked up the broken metal frame and put it in his pocket. Mrs. Bewley must have been dragged out of her house, kicking and screaming. She had been shoved into a car and carried off to that nursing home against her will, Fernydale, or whatever the hell it was called.
The back door of Mrs. Bewley’s house was wide open. Shivering with nervous excitement, John walked up the steps and looked inside.
Through the kitchen he could see into the crowded living room. People were standing shoulder to shoulder. Someone had taken the porcelain table from the kitchen and placed it beside the rubber plant as a kind of auctioneer’s block. Behind the table a balding man in a business suit was sitting in a chair, shuffling papers. John stumbled over his big sneakers as he came in, and caught himself only by lurching into someone and grabbing the edge of the table.
“Excuse me,” he said to Mrs. Gardenside, feeling a hot blush rush up from his collar.
Everyone was looking at him. Buddy Whipple was staring at him with open mouth. John was suddenly aware of his paint-splotched shirt and jeans and the blood trickling down his cheek. He shrank back behind Mrs. Gardenside and looked around furtively. Who were all these people? What did they want with Mrs. Bewley’s house?
The man behind the table was getting up, introducing himself as Rutherford Peep of the Bay Bank Harvard Trust Company on Main Street in Concord. “I will begin the bidding this afternoon at twenty thousand dollars,” said Mr. Peep, “because that is the sum owed by Alice Bewley to the mortgaging institution, namely the Harvard Trust Company. Anything over that sum will go to Mrs. Bewley, after the town of Lincoln has been reimbursed for delinquent taxes and the Boston Edison Company for unpaid electric bills. Would anyone like to begin the bidding?”
Mrs. Gardenside raised her hand and cleared her throat nervously. “I’ll bid twenty-one thousand,” she said.
“Twenty-two thousand,” said Buddy Whipple softly.
“Twenty-three thousand,” said a fat man in a checked jacket.
“Twenty-four thousand.” Mrs. Gardenside’s voice was brittle and high, her eyes were sharp, her face flushed.
“Twenty-five thousand,” said Buddy Whipple, smiling as if he were mildly amused.
“Twenty-six thousand,” said Mrs. Gardenside.
“Twenty-seven thousand,” said the fat man.
John swallowed uneasily, watching from his corner as the bidding rose to thirty thousand, thirty-five, forty. Beyond Mr. Peep, Mrs. Bewley’s enormous Crassula argenrea seemed the embodiment of its owner, a rubbery witness on her behalf. John was surprised to see traces of chicken droppings on the floor beneath it. As the bidding rose to forty-four thousand, as the fat man shook his head and bid no more, John understood why Mrs. Bewley had shooed him away from her back door. She must have been keeping some of her little hens indoors again. She hadn’t wanted him to see.
“Forty-five thousand,” said Buddy Whipple.
And then Mrs. Gardenside faltered, and made a tactical mistake. “Forty-five thousand five hundred,” she said timidly.
“Fifty thousand,” said Buddy boldly.
There was a pause. “Mr. Whipple has bid fifty thousand dollars,” repeated Mr. Peep. “Are there any more bids?” He looked expectantly at Mrs. Gardenside.
Her face was red. Her hands were trembling. “I guess — I guess I — no, I guess not.” Defeated, she stood with drooping shoulders as Mr. Peep repeated Buddy’s bid once more. “Does anyone else wish to bid on this property before I award it to Mr. Whipple for fifty thousand dollars? If not, I declare the bidding —”
“I do,” said John, raising his hand. He could feel the color drain from his face. His voice was thick. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Please, I’d like to make a bid.”
Everyone turned to look at him. John caught a glimpse of Buddy’s flabbergasted face. “Ten thousand,” said John. “I mean ten thousand more than he just said.”
“But he can’t make a bid like that,” spluttered Buddy Whipple.
“Sixty thousand dollars,” said Mr. Peep, looking encouragingly at John.
“But that’s crazy,” said Buddy. “He doesn’t have a dime.”
“Of course I shall expect a registered cashier’s check for two thousand dollars to seal the bid,” said Mr. Peep crisply. “Sixty thousand. I have a bid for sixty thousand dollars. Are there any other bids?”
“But this is ridiculous,” shouted Buddy. He leaned over the table and took Mr. Peep by the arm. “He can’t bid, I tell you.”
Mr. Peep shook his arm free and scowled at Buddy. “Do you wish to make another bid, Mr. Whipple?”
“Not ten thousand more than I already said. Look, I already won, I tell you.” Buddy was furious.
“Going once,” said Mr. Peep, whose dander was up. “At sixty thousand dollars, going twice. At sixty thousand dollars, going thrice. Sold to the young man in the back of the room for sixty thousand dollars.” Mr. Peep smiled at John, and beckoned him forward. “Congratulations, young man, the house is yours.”
John’s bones had turned to water. He thought he was going to faint. Dimly he heard Buddy laughing angrily and stamping out of the house. Walking forward with limp unsteady legs, John put his shaking hands on the porcelain table. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I mean, I don’t — I can’t —” He couldn’t speak. His voice drowned in his throat.
But Dorothy Gardenside was taking his arm. She was standing beside him with a check in her hand. “I’ll take care of it,” she said loudly to Mr. Peep. Sticking an elbow in John’s side, she nearly pushed him off his feet. “John can pay me back later on. I’ll vouch for him. Will you accept my check to secure the sale?”
The room was clearing out. The other people were leaving, clattering down the back steps. Out-of-doors John could hear engines starting up, cars driving away. Mr. Peep looked at Mrs. Gardenside’s check. “I see no reason why not,” he said. With swift authority he began filling out forms. Than he handed a piece of paper to John, stood up, slapped him on the arm and congratulated him again.
John took the paper and shambled out of the house, followed by Mrs. Gardenside. “Listen, dear,” she said, “we’ll work this thing out together. Now, I know you can’t really pay for the house. I know that was just a little bit of boyish mischief on your part. But here’s what we’ll do. You go ahead with the deal. We’ll be in business together. Just you and me. I’ll make the payments in your name, and give you a little something to make it worth your while. Okay? We’ll be partners, sort of. Won’t that be fun?”
“You mean, you’ll pay them the whole sixty thousand dollars?” John gaped at her, hardly able to speak.
“Well, sooner or later. I mean, I’m going to get it fixed up real quick, and turn it into a cute little Cape and sell it for twice as much money. Then I can transfer the mortgage to the buyer, and we’ll all come out ahead. And maybe you could do some of the work for me on the side, so I wouldn’t have to pay union wages? How would you like a hundred right now? Of course we’ll have to have a real grown-up agreement on paper, just between the two of us, just you and me.”
John felt shaky and feeble. He was breaking out in a cold sweat. Goggling at Mrs. Gardenside, he put his hand to his mouth, rushed away from her, fumbled through the scrub pine at the edge of the road, and threw up his lunch.
Forty-Five
“GOOD MAN,” HOWLED HOMER INTO THE PHONE. “BY CHRIST, there’s good blood in your veins.”
“But, Uncle Homer, what am I going to do now? I owe Mrs. Whatsername two thousand dollars, and I can’t pay the bank fifty-eight thousand dollars in a million years. I already mortgaged my entire future last spring, getting a loan for the first two years of college.”
“Listen, boy, you stopped him. That’s just superb. You hurled yourself in the way of his juggernaut. Oh God, I wish I’d been there. I wish I’d seen the whole thing. Listen here, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you a no-interest two-thousand-dollar loan for fifty years. Don’t worry about Mrs. Gardenside. I’ll send her a check. I don’t trust her. No relative of mine is going into partnership with a tough cookie like that woman. I mean, I knew one of her ilk on Nantucket, and I tell you — well, never mind.”
“But what are we going to do with the place, Uncle Homer? We can’t afford to buy it and give it to Mrs. Bewley. I mean, of course, I’d like to, and all, but —”
“Wait and see,” said Homer soothingly. “Right now, I’m just glad you’ve kept Buddy’s big greedy hands off it. I just have this strong feeling — well, it’s more than just a feeling, it’s an overpowering conviction — that we’ve got to stop that eager beaver, no matter where he starts chomping with his big sharp teeth.”
On the day after the auction of Mrs. Bewley’s house there was a thunderstorm. John covered himself with a poncho and set off on his bicycle in the wild wind and rain to deliver Homer’s check to Mrs. Gardenside without delay.
On the way back, pedaling doggedly along Baker Bridge Road, trying to avoid puddles and fallen twigs, he told himself the world was coming to an end. Lightning was splitting the sky around him with dangerous sharp cracklings. Cannonades of thunder and explosive reverberations blundered around the horizon. K-k-k-BLAM, there it went again — bimmety-bammety-boom-boom-boomety-boomety-boom. Hardly a split second between the lightning and the thunder. Really close that time. Splashing through the running rivers in the driveway, John jumped off his bike. He was relieved to find the house still there, unharmed, and overjoyed to find Barbara sitting at the kitchen table reading her mail. “Welcome home,” he said, pulling off his dripping poncho. “Hey, wait till you hear what happened.”
Barbara was astounded at his news about Mrs. Bewley’s house. She couldn’t forgive herself. “Oh, my God, we should have checked up on her every day. Oh, the poor old woman. I’ll call that damned Dolores Leech. Calls herself a nurse. More like a mortician, that’s what she is. She’s in the same league with that crazy TV repairman who goes around shooting people. And to think she was in cahoots with Buddy all the time.”
Then John was struck by a memory. “Hey,” he said, “what happened to her chickens? It just occurs to me, there weren’t any chickens in the chicken yard.” John stared vaguely at the rain pelting down on the stones of the little courtyard outside the kitchen window. “Oh, no,” he said, “the grouse. Oh, Jesus, remember those little grouse?”
Barbara looked at him, appalled. “You don’t mean —?”
John groaned, remembering the tiny morsels of breast and the dainty drumsticks. “It was Maxie. We were eating Maxie and Minnie and Mickey and all the rest of them. Eight of them, remember? There were four of us, and we had two apiece.”
“Oh, that bastard,” said Barbara. Then she leaped to her feet. “Good God, what’s Virginia doing out there in the rain?” Running to the door, Barbara threw it open and shouted at Virginia. “You silly fool girl, what are you doing?”
Virginia brushed past her. “That emergency number, what is it?”
“What for?” said Barbara sharply. “What’s happened?”
“I’ve got to call the fire department.” Virginia snatched up the phone book. “Have you seen Mrs. Bewley? I ran in there to get her out, but she wasn’t there. I saved her rubber plant. I dragged it out the back door and pitched it off the porch. Her house is on fire. I saw the smoke from upstairs. It’s burning down.”
Forty-Six
BUDDY CAME RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS WITH THE NEARLY empty kerosene can sloshing inside his shirt. For a moment he was taken aback by the sight of the small car parked at his own front door. The car was as bright as the scarlet coats of the Middlesex Foxhounds, as red as the fire trucks of the town of Lincoln. Checking his rapid plunge through the driving wind and rain, Buddy studied the car. But then he smiled and began running again, dodging around to the back of the garage. There was no official insignia on the side of the car. And it was far too small to be an official vehicle of the Lincoln fire department. Opening the door of the garage, Buddy took the can of kerosene from his shirt and put it back carefully on the shelf, setting it down precisely on the dark oblong ring that proclaimed its status as part of the domestic paraphernalia of the household. From the garage he ducked into a side entry of the house, ran upstairs, took a shower, washed his hair, put on some old clothes that had belonged to his father, and appeared at the top of the stairway in the great hall.
“Oh, here he is,” said the woman on duty at the desk below. “Buddy, this is Cynthia Schermerhorn. She’s inquiring ab
out that job we put in the paper.”
“You see, I just got canned,” said Cherry Peaches, laughing, lifting her radiant face. “From the church, I mean. And I’m afraid I got my boss in hot water too. Wow, that parish governing board! Talk about uptight! Anyway I guess I don’t really want to be in organized religion anymore anyhow. I mean, I think politics is really more where it’s at right now, you know what I mean? You know, right out there in real life? Hey, wow, maybe I’ll run for something! You know, someday! Anyway, like right now I’m ready to start at the bottom. You know, like a good sport. So how about that job? Say, isn’t this place just fabulous!”
In the gloom of the dark day and in the shadow of the enormous overhanging porch the great hall was pitchy black. But the girl at the foot of the stairs seemed a glowing object, self-luminous, effulgent.
Wait till Croney gets a load of this one, thought Buddy. Of course it would make a lot of sense to turn the girl down flat. They should hire a secretary-receptionist with fewer physical credentials, somebody more like today’s volunteer, a heavy woman in enormous polyester pants. But the trouble was, nobody else had come along. Work was piling up on the secretary-receptionist’s desk — thank-you letters to contributors, important requests for really significant gifts.
“Can you type?” said Buddy, descending the stairs, smiling at Cherry Peaches, waving her into a chair.
Forty-Seven
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE S-CURVE ON ROUTE 126, HOMER PAUSED dangerously to gaze at the blackened ruins of Mrs. Bewley’s house. The fire department was cleaning up. The wreckage was just as bad as John had said on the phone. Stepping angrily on the gas, Homer swerved the Volvo wildly between the two brick gateposts and bounced furiously up the hill.
