“Good evening, Mr. Haas,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “I thought—I was afraid you would have gone.”
“One for the road, Mrs. Bromwell,” Haas said, and bowed over his glass, but without excess. “And I didn’t want to leave until I had had a chance to say how much I’ve enjoyed everything.”
“I’m so glad,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “Sherry, please, Scott. You’ll see that—”
But then the butler came to the door and stood just inside it, near the woman in the gray dress, and Mrs. Bromwell broke off. “Yes, William?” she said.
“Mr. Haas’s car,” William said. “Mr. Bromwell asked me to have it brought around.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Bromwell said, and looked at Haas.
“Thanks,” Haas said, generally in the direction of William. “Then—?”
“William will have your things in the hall,” Mrs. Bromwell assured him. “It has been very—interesting meeting you, Mr. Haas.” She did not offer her hand, and Haas bowed and said, again, “Thank you.” He bowed, less pronouncedly, to Karen, raised a hand to Scott, who turned from the bar, where he seemed to be having difficulty in finding a sherry glass, and nodded.
“Good bye, darling,” Marta said. “Be seeing.” She did hold out her hand and Haas took it, held it an instant and let it go. All he said was, “Good bye, then.”
Then, with a final movement of the head which included all of them, he went. No one spoke until the sound of a motor starting could be heard from the drive outside and even then Marta went to a window which overlooked the drive and looked out, watching the car leave. When the sound of the motor receded, she turned back and looked at the others in the room.
“So charming,” she said. “Such charming people. Such—” She spread her hands instead of finishing.
“Really, my dear,” Mrs. Bromwell said, “I’m sure we made Mr. Haas very comfortable.” She spoke with little interest and, as if continuing on a matter of equal importance, said, “Pauline, I think the children?”
“Of course, Mrs. Bromwell,” the woman in the gray dress said, and advanced into the room. “Lorry,” she said. “Elspeth.”
“No,” Elspeth said. “We just came.” She looked at her grandmother. “Hot chocolate?” she said. “And cookies?”
“I think so,” Mrs. Bromwell said. Her voice was different, now. “Run along, Pethy.” She paused for a moment. “And Lorry,” she said.
Lorry obediently started toward Pauline. He stopped, however, and looked up at Karen and said, “ ’Lo.”
“Hello, darling,” Karen said, stooping to him. She lifted him. “You’re pretty,” Lorry said. “Prettier than anybody.” But then he paused. “Except mummy,” he said. He turned to look at his grandmother. “And gran’ma,” he added.
“Run along, Elspeth, Lorry,” Marta said. Karen put Lorry down. Neither of the children ran, but they went. Their nurse closed the door behind them.
Marta barely waited for the door to close.
“The hospitality of High Ridge,” she said. “The fine old New England hospitality. One of these days—” She left it unfinished.
“Yes, Marta?” Mrs. Bromwell said, and waited. She seemed to speak from a great distance and from no small altitude.
“Don’t you wish I would?” Marta said. “Don’t you, Scott? My loving family. Which of you told Pethy to be such a charming little lady?”
“Really, Marta,” Mrs. Bromwell said, from an enhanced elevation. “My sherry, Scott?”
Scott brought sherry; brought a martini for Karen. Karen took it, smiled at him, and walked to a window at some distance down the room. There were families it was difficult to be a member of, but from which it was equally hard to escape. She could not very well leave the room, like a servant. She could withdraw a little, pretend she did not hear. And that was like a servant, too. Damn, Karen thought. Damn!
Making a point of it, Marta crossed to the bar and filled her cocktail glass. She said, turning back, that she should have known. Neither her mother-in-law nor her husband denied this. Neither spoke.
“Such sincere people,” Marta said. “Such New England reserve.” She emptied her cocktail glass and put it down. She added a one word comment, which was without reserve.
“And half an hour ago,” Marta said, speaking directly to Mrs. Bromwell. “Half an hour ago—so sweet, so—so god-damn motherly. We must both be so considerate, try to understand—try to—What was the point of it?”
“What I said,” Mrs. Bromwell told her. “I have no desire to quarrel with you, Marta.”
“So vulgar to quarrel, isn’t it?” Marta said. “Like something I’d do? Or my friends? Rudy Haas?”
“Mr. Haas had no reason to complain,” Mrs. Bromwell said, and at almost the same instant Scott said, “Skip it, Marta.” He looked toward Karen, who wished the fog indoors, so she could be lost in it.
“I might as well,” Marta said and, with the new sentence, the edge went out of her voice and it was velvety again. “I don’t know why I give a damn. Particularly about—” Momentarily she seemed amused. She said, “I think I’ll go to the dogs.” She smiled at her husband. “So appropriate, isn’t it, darling?” she said. She looked at Mrs. Bromwell. “A small change, but for the better,” she added, still in the soft, luxurious voice. “And the walk will be so good for me, as you said.”
The dogs were boxers and the kennel was beyond the garage. They had been Mrs. Bromwell’s; three years before Marta had assumed nominal responsibility and they were benched under her name. Every now and then she thought of them; the afternoon before she had spent almost two hours showing them to Rudolph Haas. Now she added “That’s just what I’ll do” to what she had said already, and started toward the door.
“You’ll be back to take Karen to the station?” Scott asked her.
Marta stopped.
“If I’m not, Miss Mason can—” she began, broke off and said, “Damn. I’d forgotten the pups. All right. About half an hour, then.” She went on.
“She needn’t,” Karen said, from the window. “I can telephone for a taxi. It isn’t even vital that I go.” She turned back to the window, looking out into the fog.
Mrs. Bromwell told her that was nonsense. She’d made her plans; her friend expected her. Mrs. Bromwell no longer spoke from an elevation. In any case, Scott told Karen, Marta would be going to Stamford. She wanted to look at the Fairvale Kennels’ new litter. “Wants to pick a bitch,” he added and smiled, this time with a little amusement, and went to refill his glass. I wish he wouldn’t, Karen thought. Oh—damn! She went to the bar and poured herself the last martini, which would be largely ice water, probably. Which was. She went back to the window. Marta, in a heavy, rough coat, was going down the spur of the drive toward the garage and the kennels. When she had gone fifty feet the fog swallowed her. “So unpleasant for you, dear,” Mrs. Bromwell said to Karen. “I wish—”
But William came to the door and Mrs. Bromwell stopped speaking at once and looked at him and waited.
“A gentleman wishes to use the telephone, Mrs. Bromwell,” he said. “It appears that he has had difficulty with his car, near the gate.” He looked at the telephone instrument just inside the door of the East Room. It was, his look indicated, appropriate that the gentleman should use that telephone instead of the only other downstairs extension, which was beyond the swinging door to the kitchen hall. William’s sense of the appropriate was as resolute as steel.
“Of course,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “Ask him to come in.” She made a gesture, turning this over to her son. She walked the length of the long room and out of it through the door leading to the library.
It was subsequently established that Everett Hume entered the East Room at High Ridge, at “Mrs. Bromwell’s place,” and said, “Thanks a lot. Terribly sorry” at about twenty-five minutes after five. It was not until much later that anyone wondered why he had not stopped at the cottage near the gates. As it was he had walked, unnecessarily, a third of a mile or more.
I
I
There is a sign on route Conn. 137, which runs from below Katonah through Poundridge and into Stamford on the Sound, which reads “High Ridge.” There are houses there; the community had been there for many years when Mrs. Lucretia Bromwell, then Mrs. Richard Bromwell, moved her husband and her son and a daughter, older than the son but destined for a shorter life, from the vicinity of Southampton, Massachusetts, to a more accessible location, by which she meant, as so many people mean, accessible to New York. To a lesser person, the fact that the name of High Ridge had already been pre-empted by a community, and particularly a community only a few miles distant, might have seemed a reason for naming the new place something else. It did not seem so to Mrs. Bromwell; she did not, in fact, permit the question to cross her mind.
The enormous house, which had been built at a time which produced many houses unbecoming to the landscape, was, certainly, on a high ridge. It surmounted it, seemed even to subdue it. The house stretched indefinitely in all directions; it was composed of brown shingles and it had circular protuberances with pointed roofs at the corners, of which there were many. And it was not, as Mrs. Bromwell had believed when she first decided to purchase it, in Connecticut at all, but in Westchester County, New York. It was, from New Canaan, “back” of Scott Corners, which is in New York; it was almost due east of Scott Corners and the moderately improved road which passed near it wandered irresolutely along the state line toward Vista, which again is in New York, finding itself now in one state and now in the other.
Something more than half of the hundred-odd acres which went with the monstrous house lay in Connecticut, but the remaining acres and the house itself were New Yorkers, and so, perforce, were the Bromwells. Mrs. Bromwell regretted this briefly, but was not a person to make too much of it, any more than she was a person to make too much of the obvious fact that the identity of names between her estate and the community on Conn. 137 created confusion. Guests destined for Bromwell hospitality frequently ended up at the other High Ridge, but after the first few years this meant merely that they had made a small and unnecessary, but not arduous, detour. After the first few years, Mrs. Bromwell was known in the other High Ridge, as she was known in Poundridge, Bedford, Lewisboro and South Salem, to say nothing of Vista. All of these communities felt they had a share of Mrs. Bromwell, and for many years they were fondly proud of her, as one might be of a monument, active in enterprises having to do with local improvements, generous in contribution to all worthy funds and to be counted upon to serve on library committees. Nor were the fondness and pride ever altogether extinguished, even after the day in late January when the man who identified himself as Everett Hume walked an unnecessary third of a mile up the beautifully kept driveway to the monstrous house, and asked to be permitted to use the telephone, saying that he had a flat tire and no lug wrench.
Scott Bromwell said that if that were all, he could have a man get a wrench from the garage and, for that matter, change the tire—this last after a second look at Hume, who was not dressed for changing tires. He was dressed very well, in tweeds, with a soft textured topcoat; he was as tall as Scott, and heavier and, Scott guessed, also in his early thirties. He was blond and his face was disarmingly ruddy. Possibly it was because of this, of his general appearance of fresh wholesomeness, and because he smiled and seemed almost embarrassed to cause trouble, that one noticed belatedly—and then without real conviction—that his face was less than commonly rounded; might, with its flat planes, even be considered rather formidable.
He shook his head to Scott’s suggestion, smiling and seeming to betray increased embarrassment.
“This is my bad day,” he said, in a light, pleasant and unrevealing voice. “I thought of asking that. Unfortunately, the spare’s flat too.” He shook his head. “Obviously,” he said, “I need a guardian.” It was then, she decided later, that Karen Mason first noticed how very little the blond man seemed to need a guardian.
Scott gave the blond man a number to ask for and said, “Tell them you’re at Mrs. Bromwell’s.” The man nodded, saying “thanks” again, and asked for the number. When he got it he said his name was Hume, Everett Hume, and went on from there. He listened, said “O.K.” and hung up.
“They’ll be along,” he said. “Thanks again, Mr. Bromwell.” He smiled at Karen, including her; associating her with the hospitality extended him although appearing to have guessed it was not hers.
“May as well have a drink with us while you wait,” Scott said. “Scotch? A cocktail?”
But to that extent, Hume said, he couldn’t bother them, couldn’t think of bothering them. He had already made nuisance enough of himself. Probably by the time he got back to the car, “they” would be there.
“Matter of fact,” he said, “I’m due in New Canaan.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “Over-due,” he added. “The fog makes slow going.”
He left, then. In the hall, they could hear him speaking to William, thanking him; probably, Karen decided, giving him something because she thought she heard William say, “Thank you, sir.” It was odd, she thought absently, how some voices, seemingly no higher pitched than others, no greater in volume, have disproportionate audibility. Hume’s words to William could be heard clearly; William’s answer might almost be something she imagined. But then Scott Bromwell was suggesting another drink and as he mixed it he was saying he was sorry as hell.
“It’s all right, Scott,” she said. “It can’t be helped.” She paused. “Everybody’s the way they are, I guess,” she said, to add something, to fill a moment with response. He smiled at that, with a kind of affectionate amusement, and gave her the martini. Although she had agreed to take it, she was surprised to find it in her fingers. “Drink it,” he said. “You must need it.” He drank himself, and she sipped slowly from the glass, tasting the cold sharpness of the drink.
“Mother’s very fond of you,” he said, as if the words made a continuation of what he had just said. “So—” But instead of continuing, he drank again from his glass. “Where’d she go, by the way?”
Karen thought the library, and said so. Scott looked toward the library door, as if he thought of going to it, but then shook his head.
“It upsets her,” he said. “One wouldn’t think so to watch her. But all the same—” He smiled slightly. “Not that she didn’t brush Haas off,” he said. “And out. Marta should have known—” Again he did not finish the sentence, and this time his self-interruption was abrupt, a matter of decision. He finished his drink and looked toward the portable bar with speculation.
“Join me?” he asked, and Karen shook her head. There were a good many things she would have liked to say, but they were not things for her to say. So, after a moment, she said only that she ought to be putting some things in her bag. Scott nodded to that, as if he only half heard her; as if he only half remembered she was there. As she left the room, Karen felt as much as saw that his indecision had ended. He was moving toward the bar. She went on upstairs. Perhaps she might as well go to New York not for the night, not to meet and have dinner with, go to a movie with, stay overnight with, a girl she had known in school, but for the rest of time, the rest of her time. She cold-creamed and renewed makeup; she changed; she put the things she needed for one night in a bag and looked at her watch. It indicated ten minutes after six. If she were to catch the six forty-one, she would have to be leaving soon.
She carried her bag downstairs and left it in the hall. She went into the East Room and it was empty. It would be like Marta not to bother, Karen thought; so like her. Even if they left now they would no more than make it, unless Marta decided to take long chances in the fog. But then she heard quick steps in the hall, thought “She didn’t forget after all” and started toward the door. The door opened abruptly, but it was not Marta who opened it. The children’s nurse was there, and she looked quickly, anxiously, around the room. She said, “Lorry? Lorry!” and then, “Have you seen him, Miss Mason? He’s—I can’t find him anywhere.” She s
poke rapidly, anxiously.
“Lorry?” Karen said. “What’s happened, Pauline?”
Pauline James came farther into the room, searching it with her eyes.
“Elspeth thought he’d gone to the bathroom,” she said, speaking hurriedly still, almost tonelessly. “So did I. But he hadn’t. I can’t find him upstairs. Anywhere.” She called again. “Lorry!” she called, and now her voice was high, excited.
Her call did not bring the child, but it brought Scott Bromwell out of the library. He came quickly, listened to the nurse, moved quickly. He got William; William was to get everybody. The house first, then the grounds. They were—
“What is it, Scott?” his mother said, from the hall door to the West Room. “What’s happened?”
She had changed, Karen noticed; she was wearing a woolen dress, now. That was where she had gone, to change; probably she was getting one of her colds. But when she heard the news she showed no signs of it, nor of hesitancy. She looked at Pauline James as if about to say something, and looked away as if it were needless. “The west wing, Karen,” she said. “Scott—”
The slight, fair child was not in the house. It took Scott and his mother, Karen and the nurse, William and the maids, no more than a quarter of an hour to be sure of that. And Marta Bromwell was not in the house either, nor was she in the kennels.
“If she’s—” Scott began when he met Karen in the hall, saw her shake her head, “If she—” But he did not finish. He was pulling coats out of a hall closet.
It is hard to search a hundred and more acres in a heavy fog; it is impossible. One can stumble through the fog, lose one’s self and find one’s self again, hurry into clinging darkness—as if by hurrying one could search the better; one can cry a name over and over again. “Lorry! Lorry!” But if a little boy of five has come to harm, if he has fallen in the grass and weeds of an unmowed meadow and lies there in cold wetness, and does not answer—cannot answer—
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