by Frances
After a few minutes she thought, I must make myself think of something else. Tomorrow is Tuesday, she thought, and I’ve got to have the list of houses definite by then because the Advertiser closes at noon and I’ve got to get the copy in, and have Mrs. Simpson look at it first, because what would she do if she couldn’t approve things first? Let’s see—Lois thought, and checked over the houses which had been promised. Pruitt’s house and the Sopher house—which was, actually, the house Pruitt was talking about when he spoke with contempt of a couple of bricks left standing, although you wouldn’t think so to look at it now—and the old schoolhouse and—and—and— And the Montfort house, the old Brown house.
She supposed not, now that Mrs. Montfort was dead. It would be considered inappropriate, she supposed, to open the house so soon after Mrs. Montfort had died in it. (Mrs. Simpson approved almost everything, but she probably would not approve that, would find it unsuitable.) It was rather a pity, because the house—if unquestionably gloomy—was authentic. (Even Pruitt admitted that, grudgingly, while pointing out that a lot had been added to it since the Revolution.) And Mrs. Montfort—if Mrs. Harbrook was to be trusted—and why not?—had planned to give permission and write and say so being—if Mr. Graham was to be trusted, the friendly well-meaning man—a “hundred per cent Glenville.” She would talk about it with Mrs. Simpson in the morning and—
Where had she heard that voice before? Thinking now of the house, of its cool darkness, the sound of the voice came with memory of clammy coolness, of gloom. She could hear it again, quite clearly, and it was the voice of the old, old woman, wrapped in a shawl in a deep chair in a dim room—
And—it wasn’t. It was the voice of a slim, youngish woman with short brown almost certainly dyed hair. What it amounts to, Lois thought, I’ve begun to hear things. Being alone so much now, avoiding people whose presence, and whose every word, is a reminder, shunning new contacts—I must take hold of myself, Lois thought and then, quite slowly, with a kind of determination, Ken wouldn’t want it this way for me. And then, as deliberately: If Mr. Graham does get around to asking me to have the second drink—as probably he won’t—I’ll say, “I’d like to very much, Mr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Graham.”
Earnest, friendly Attorney Graham, with his tendency to say the wrong thing; to say too much and then—so revealingly—stop as if he had tripped himself. If wool were to be pulled over eyes, Mr. Graham had the eyes for it and—
And at that instant, her thoughts running along without direction, Lois Williams herself stumbled. For a moment she could not believe what she stumbled on; rejected it as altogether preposterous. People don’t do such things, she thought—echoing Judge Brack’s celebrated error—before she formulated with any precision what it was that people did not do. Then she did:
A woman in her thirties, with short brown hair, did not impersonate a woman in her eighties and—sign an old woman’s will for her. A long-faced woman in her sixties, with a noticeable beard on her chin, did not lean close to such an impostor and call her “dear.” A youngish lawyer—a hearty youngish man, of the kind who slaps other men on the back—did not accept such an imposture— Her mind checked on that, since that he might was precisely that which had started her on this preposterous fiction. Howard Graham might very well. He had seen old Mrs. Montfort only twice before the signing, and might well, each time, have seen the impostor. And Lois herself, she really would have no reason whatever to doubt Mrs. Montfort’s identity, since she had never seen her before and seen her only dimly that afternoon. And as for Tony—she did not suppose that Tony had even looked at the woman in the deep chair. And as for Mrs. Harbrook’s nephew—Keating, wasn’t it?—
As long as I’m writing fiction—preposterous fiction—Lois Williams thought, I may as well finish off the story. And, although of course this isn’t real—this is merely something to make up so that I don’t sit brooding—it isn’t really true that people don’t do such things. People do all sorts of things, many of them worse. They murder and—
They murder old women, and old men—and young women and young men too—for money. One reads about it often—reads of far-off things which, although they do not (ever) happen close to hand, do still happen. And, Mrs. Abigail Montfort had money. A great deal of money, Mr. Graham said. And the money would go to someone, because money always went to someone.
Suppose, Lois thought, all the money is left to Mrs. Harbrook. Suppose Mrs. Harbrook and her nephew have forced the poor old thing to draw up a will leaving all the money to her faithful housekeeper and then got a bumbling lawyer—
No, she thought, it wouldn’t be that way. Suppose they killed the old woman and found she hadn’t left a will, or had left the money to the wrong person, and then hired a woman—an actress?—to impersonate her. And then called in the bumbling lawyer and pulled the wool over his eyes, letting him meet the fake Mrs. Montfort and draw up a will as instructed and stand by, with witnesses similarly taken in, while she signed it and—
Suddenly, Lois laughed at herself. I’m no good at this sort of thing, she thought. Because all I come up with is a forged will (if one doesn’t count murder) and that really is preposterous. Mrs. Montfort’s signature is, of course, all over the place and you don’t pick up an actress who can impersonate an old woman and, at the same time, forge her signature well enough to fool experts. Because, if there is any question about the will—and the grandson, if he was cut out of it, might certainly raise one—there are experts who can detect forgeries, even very good forgeries.
I sit here mooning in front of a dead TV set, Lois Williams thought, and decided that, by now, the airplane movie would surely be over, and turned the set on again. The movie was over; she watched news which, while certainly not anything to uplift the spirits, was at least not full of pictures of airplanes.
After the news was over, Lois Williams fixed herself something to eat and afterward read for a time—not about munder and forged wills—and then went to bed and to sleep; went early, since tomorrow would be busy, what with Mrs. Simpson and Mr. Oliver at the Advertiser.
This night she was not awakened by a dream of flame. It is true that she dreamed of an old woman who cried out for help in a high, carrying voice and signed her name to something—but signed it with a brush, not a pen, and hence could be assumed to be an old Chinese woman. Howard Graham appeared briefly in the dream—as a sheep.
III
On being told, Mrs. Simpson looked worried. Lois had not known her long, but had not known her at any moment when she did not look worried. When responsibilities arose, Mrs. Simpson accepted them—there were those, but not the kindest, who hinted that any responsibility passing within hailing range of Mrs. Simpson was accepted before it knew what was happening to it. Responsibilities worried her; that was evident. It might even be that they weighed on her. But she did not shirk them. Nobody could say that about her.
“Well,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Well, dear—I don’t know. After all—a House of Death.”
“Of course,” Lois said, “the funeral will be Thursday. Friday at the latest. So—”
“Yes,” Mrs. Simpson said. “But—is it Seemly, dear? Does it show Proper Respect? That’s what we have to think about, isn’t it?”
“A good many people must have died in the old house,” Lois said. “Since—it was built around seventeen fifty, wasn’t it? A good many people—young men who were soldiers and—and—so many people. The house itself is—there. Impervious.”
“I do see what you mean,” Mrs. Simpson said, which was consoling, since Lois had not herself been sure. “But—”
“And without it,” Lois said, “so much will be lost, don’t you think? The cannon-ball house.”
Obscurely, Lois felt a duty to the Montfort house.
“But you must decide, of course,” Lois said, heaping responsibility where it would find its most suitable resting place. “Mrs. Harbrook was quite sure Mrs. Montfort would want the house included.”
“Poor dear E
lla,” Mrs. Simpson said. “I do hope Abby did the Right Thing for her. So devoted. So many years.” She shookher head, bowed down. “Such a difficult house to keep clean, too,” she added, rather unexpectedly.
There did not seem to be much to say to that.
They were in a corner of the main room of the Community House. The Community House—once the Asbrook Mansion, but barely a hundred years ago—consisted almost entirely of the main room, which was sparsely furnished (wicker) but most suitable for Garden Club shows. The various committees met in various corners; the Committee on Special Events was at that moment—ten-fifteen, Tuesday morning—meeting in the corner most distant from that in which Lois piled and Mrs. Simpson shouldered.
“Perhaps,” Lois said, “I might call Mrs. Harbrook? Or—should it be Mr. Graham? As her lawyer—”
“Graham?” Mrs. Simpson said. “Oh—Howard Graham. Well—”
“Or,” Lois said, “it might be better—I’m sure it would be much better—if you called her. As chairman, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Mrs. Simpson said, “it is my Responsibility.”
“The thing is,” Lois said, “we’ve got to get the list to the Advertiser by noon. And I’ve got one more—the Follonsby house. Mrs. Follonsby is still a little worried about the china dogs.”
“Martha and her china dogs,” Mrs. Simpson said. “You told her there’s blanket insurance? By the town, on everything? As long as there is somebody sitting in each room? By the way, dear. Could you possibly manage to do one of the rooms?”
“I told her,” Lois said. “Of course, Mrs. Simpson. I’d be very glad to.”
Which was politeness. It was true that, to comply with the terms fixed by the insurance company to cover such depredations as might be perpetrated—by people from out of town, of course—on the possessions of those whose houses were open for inspection, a responsible person had to occupy each room of each house, and keep his eyes open. There was, for example, no way of telling how many china dog fanciers—from out of town, of course—might pay their two dollars and a half to make the tour. She might, Lois thought, as well be one of the house sitters Saturday afternoon as anything else.
“I will call poor dear Ella,” Mrs. Simpson said. “This very minute. You wait right here, dear. I won’t be a minute.”
She was ten. She came back, and began to nod her head from across the room.
“It’s what dear Abby Would Have Wanted,” Mrs. Simpson said, when she was nearer. “Ella is quite sure. And, dear—I didn’t know it was when you were there.”
“It—” Lois said. “Oh. No, she was all right when we—Mr. Graham and I—left. That is, Mrs. Harbrook thought she had just dozed off. I suppose that, really—”
“How dreadful,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Of course, It Was Her Time. We must accept that. And we all noticed that she had been getting much feebler lately. And Such an Easy Way to Go, of course.”
“Yes,” Lois said, supposing it had been, but thinking, too, that Mrs. Simpson postulated on insufficient evidence, not yet having Gone herself. “Then I’ll include the house in the list. And take it to Mr. Oliver.”
“Do that, dear,” Mrs. Simpson said, discharging that responsibility and, Lois thought, looking around for another.
She drove to the Follonsby house and reassured Martha Follonsby about china dogs. She parked, after that, outside the square brick building of the Glenville Advertiser (and job printing). She climbed a flight of stairs and the door of Robert Oliver’s office was open, as it usually was. Oliver’s typewriter resounded among wooden walls, as also usual. Oliver looked over his typewriter and glared at her, which was equally to be expected.
He was an angular man in his middle thirties; he had deep set eyes and tow-colored hair which always needed cutting. He pushed it back from his eyes so as to glare the better. Lois smiled.
Bob Oliver was one of the few Glenville people outside “the flock” she knew—had known before she sought activity in unreminding places—at all well. He always glared at her, even at parties. (Had, when she went to parties.) Oliver got around, as a newspaperman should. He was, also, curious about everything.
“Everybody,” he said now, harshly, “always waits till the last minute. You got it, finally?”
“Hi,” Lois said.
“All right,” Oliver said and, briefly, substituted a smile for a glare. “Hi yourself. You got the list?”
“Yes.”
“Written out? Ready for the printer?”
“Well,” she said, “I thought you—”
“Always,” he said, and glared again. “Always. Everybody. Think that I. You’re literate, aren’t you? Can use a typewriter, can’t you?”
“Hunt and peck,” Lois said.
“Then,” he said, “hunt and peck. I am up to my ears. Leading citizen pops off. Waits until just before we got to bed, of course. Why not Sunday night? Why Monday?”
“Inconsiderate,” Lois said. “You mean Mrs. Montfort? Was she a leading citizen?”
“Anybody who’s got a million dollars is a leading citizen,” Bob Oliver said. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself, girl?” But he stopped at that; his face changed. “Where have you, come to that?”
“Nowhere much,” she said.
“Taking care of yourself?”
“Trying to. This typewriter you’ve been talking about?”
He pointed to it—a typewriter under cover, on a table without a chair. Then, his long-fingered hands came down hard on the keys of his own typewriter and the room clattered. It was characteristic of him to leave it there, which meant leaving Lois to lug a chair across the room to the typewriter’s table. No wonder, she thought, his wife left him—left him some years ago, before she and Ken moved to Glenville; left him, it was reported, for another man. Probably, she thought, beginning to hunt and peck, for a man who did not glare so much, who was handier at moving chairs.
“Ten of Glenville’s most historic houses will be open for public inspection Saturday afternoon,” she wrote, “as part of the celebration of the town’s—”
She hoped that was the way to begin it; it seemed, at any rate, the obvious way to begin. The time of the tour, the amount to be paid, the need of providing one’s own transportation, the worthiness of the causes which would profit, the—
She read it over, correcting typos, which were numerous. Everything seemed to be in. Probably, she thought, there should be a few flourishes; the account seemed somewhat spare. Well, if Bob Oliver wanted flourishes, he could provide flourishes. At the moment, his typewriter continued to clatter. He used, she noticed idly, waiting, all his long, lean fingers. He stopped abruptly and glared at what he had written. He wrenched paper angrily from his typewriter and attacked it with a pencil. A violent man, she thought. I wonder why he—
“Well,” Oliver said, glaring now at Lois. “Let’s see it, girl.” But then, abruptly, he smiled. His smile was wide; it had a kind of completeness. A very changeable man, Mr. Robert Oliver, editor, Lois thought and, since he made no move to come to her, went to him, presented to him her small offering of ancient houses.
He read quickly. He inserted “this coming” before Saturday. He scratched out one word and wrote in another. He tossed the offering into a basket, his gestures seeming one of contempt.
“I’m sorry,” Lois said. “It’s not very—eloquent, is it?”
The smile had gone out as he edited. It reappeared as suddenly as before.
“Thank God for small favors,” he said. “It’s all right, girl. Where-when-what-who and, to a degree, why. Very nicely spelled, too. If you ever want a job.”
He seemed, with that, to forget her. He glared at the typewritten sheet in front of him and, angrily, with ferocity, obliterated a word with pencil marks. He read on.
“Well,” she said, “I’ll—”
He made a sharp gesture, a silencing gesture. Who did he think—
“All right,” he said. “There it is. A life in a column.”
He sent three or four typewritten sheets to join Lois’s contribution in a basket.
“Mrs. Abigail Montfort,” he said. “Widow of the late—some thirty years late—Alfred Montfort, Esquire.”
“You knew her?” Lois asked.
“Met her now and then,” he said. “When she was still getting around. Year or two ago she was.”
“Did she,” Lois asked, “have a peculiar voice?”
He looked at her, then, intently. He asked what she meant, “peculiar.” He said, “You mean while you were there she didn’t speak a mumbling word?”
“Oh yes,” Lois said. “She spoke. She had a very—carrying voice. That was all I meant.”
“Then,” he said, “why ask me?”
“I only,” Lois said, “wondered if you’d noticed it.”
“Women,” Bob Oliver said, addressing the ceiling, “are interested in the damnedest things.” He continued to regard the ceiling. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I don’t remember that I did notice anything out of the way about her voice. Women usually have carrying voices.” He looked down from the ceiling. “Present company—” he said. “Speaking of the care and cultivation of bromides.”
He continued, although he seemed to have nothing further to say, to look at her, his eyes a little narrowed.
“Girl,” he said, “how are you making out?”
It was none of his business; she had never known him well enough for that; never would know him well enough for that. She waited for resentment to flow into her mind. It did not flow into her mind.
“All right,” she said. “As well as can be expected.”
He continued to look at her.
“Well,” she said. “The piece is all right? About the house tour?”
“A deft changing of the subject,” he told her. “Especially since I just said it was all right. So, it’s none of my business. Say— reportorial curiosity.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “As long as you’re here,” he said, “I wonder if you’d—”