Mrs. Roberto - Or the Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump turned on the man with a degree of energetic suspicion. “The gentleman from last night!” said Eagleton.

  Suddenly the Moosepathians were subject to all manner of conjecture, and it occurred to them, all at once, that the man—indeed, the men—who had been running after Mr. Spark the night before were part of the plot against Mrs. Roberto and that this fellow had come to silence the woman in 12A.

  Fuzz Hadley was astounded. Having planned this trap with the woman in 12A, he had expected to find but one of the men who had come to Thaddeus Q. Spark’s assistance—perhaps even the one who had rescued Spark’s wife’s uncle from a life in prison; but here were all three of them, and what did that mean? He was further unnerved by the barely concealed disapproval in their furrowed brows. The one with the beard, in particular, looked formidable. Fuzz pivoted on one heel and almost tumbled down the stairs in his retreat.

  “Fuzz!” shouted the woman as the man fled, and then, to Eagleton, Ephram, and Thump, “Are you the cops?” She looked ready to shut the door.

  Thump stepped forward and laid his hand upon the knob. “Don’t be alarmed,” he rumbled, though this assurance was perhaps too late.

  “It is awkward, of course,” said Eagleton in a rush, “but perhaps you had better get yourself suitably arranged, and then you can tell us what you know about Mrs. Roberto. That fellow is gone, but come with us and we will find safe harbor for you.”

  They might have been complete lunatics, for the expression on her face. A door opened down the hall, and a distinguished gray-haired gentleman leaned his head out and said, “Is it the cops?”

  The front door banged open again and several men charged into the hall below. Eagleton all but pushed his fellows through the open door to 12A just as Fuzz Hadley pointed up the stairwell and shouted, “There they are!”

  Eagleton fell over Thump, who had tripped over something, and Ephram slammed the door behind them. They were in a small, sparsely furnished chamber dressed in red and gold. The sound on the stairs was thunderous and the harsh voices and vicious-sounding (if mysterious) jargon of the oncoming horde horrified the Moosepathians. With a shout, the lady (Winnie, as they were to understand) disappeared into a further room and slammed the door shut just as Eagleton had caught the glimpse of a garishly bedecked bed. There was a tentative shove at the hall door from without, but Ephram had enough leverage to hold it till he was able to turn the key.

  There was a bang, and they imagined a gun had gone off, but it was only the crash of a shoulder against the other side of the door. Another bang followed, and another, in quick succession. A woman screamed from another room, and there were shouts from someone asking for a rear exit. More imprecations made their way through the door. Someone bellowed “Get back!” and another collision shook the door.

  Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were horrified. “Quick! Out here!” came a voice behind them. The single window in the room had been raised, and a young boy was standing on the narrow ledge beneath the gable. He beckoned to them, saying, “Come on!” The door gave a sickening snap beneath the next blow. Thump stared at the boy and said, “It’s the Spark lad!”

  Timothy’s freckled face was stamped with fear and astonishment. “Mr. Thump, please hurry!” he said, obviously near to flight himself.

  “But the lady!” declared Ephram.

  “The lady?” said the boy.

  Crash!

  “We cannot abandon her!” agreed Thump.

  “Winifred?”

  “She must be rescued!” declared Eagleton, halfway to the inner door.

  Crash!

  “She’s part of the gang!” shouted Timothy just as the outer door took the penultimate blow with a jarring snap.

  Eagleton turned about-face, saying, “What?”

  “She’s part of the gang!” Timothy helped Ephram out the window. Eagleton raced back to the sash and gave Thump some assistance in clambering onto the roof, then scrambled his own long form through the aperture.

  Timothy slammed the window shut just as the door burst open and several cursing, shouting, flailing men toppled into the room that had just been quit by the Moosepath League.

  20. The High Road

  The steep pitch of the roof and the theater-appropriate shoes worn by the members of the club were not elements to engender confidence, there on the slates, in the near dark, with the strange silhouettes of gables and chimneys and other roofs against the stars and the voices of their pursuers only yards away. They were on the back side of the house, the dim glow from the window fanning into the gloom of a narrow alley, and their eyes needed several moments to adjust. When they were able to see, the gentlemen of the club were each startled by the presence of a small boy atop the gable, straddling its peak like the imp on a Gothic cornice.

  “That’s Mailon,” explained Timothy Spark.

  The Moosepathians were doing their polite best to greet Mailon when they heard a woman’s scream, then a crash. Presumably the gang thought that Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were hiding themselves with Winifred, and the door to her inner room had suffered a fate similar to that of the outer entry. They were horrified by Winifred’s shouts, and if Timothy could not see their expressions very clearly he yet knew what they were thinking.

  “She’s part of the gang,” he said again.

  Eagleton’s feet were slipping, and only his grip on the corner of the gable kept him on the roof.

  “You okay?” asked the skinny little fellow atop the gable.

  “I believe so, thank you very much,” said Eagleton. He let go of the gable with one hand long enough to tip his hat.

  Mailon indicated with a wave that Eagleton should think nothing of it.

  Ephram and Thump were having similar difficulties with the steep roof, and they could only be glad the rain had left off. Voices echoed from Danforth Street on the other side of the house.

  “We’d better scoot,” said Timothy, though now that he had gotten them out of the room he considered it a little daunting to get them off the roof and safely away. “There’s more coming all the time, by the sound of it,” ventured the boy. “Can you make the peak?”

  If the Moosepathians doubted their ability to achieve this end, another crash from inside, punctuated by still another dire scream, was all they needed for encouragement. They scrambled for the summit, up the shifty slates—slipping but making headway, scurrying three or four steps to gain a single foot. It was a blessing, perhaps, that the men inside were making such a racket, since they did not hear the desperate scuttling above them, and eventually the three men threw their arms over the peak like exhausted mountaineers. Peering over the roof, they could see a crowd gathering on Danforth Street.

  Tim and Mailon stood above everything, balanced like goats on the peak.

  “"Where’s Bobby?” wondered Tim in a whisper. He looked anxiously down at the street, then across the varied roof levels to the west. A birdlike call warbled from somewhere in the night and Tim said, “Ah!”

  There were more shouts from the house, the noise of which rose as the window opened again and someone said, “They couldn’t have gone out this way!” and another said, “Where else could they go?”

  “Come on!” hissed Tim. He tried to help Eagleton up onto the peak of the roof, but Eagleton had to do most of the work himself. Once perched there, he was able to assist Thump and Ephram. Tim was already halfway along the ridge of the roof, with Mailon toeing just behind; the men half crawled, half slid after them. “Don’t let old Fuzz Hadley catch you,” warned Tim as they drew near to him. “He’s mean as a hurt dog. Come on.”

  Some men from the house had joined the gathering mob in the street and they were gazing up at the roof just as Eagleton stood, one sliding foot on either side of the ridge. A shingle gave way beneath his shoe, scraping down the slope of the roof and out into space. “There they are!” shouted one of the men in the street, and then, “They’re throwing slates down at us!” There were shouts and curses and the cr
owd scattered.

  Feet slipping, arms windmilling, Eagleton took off after the boys. Ephram was close behind. Thump gained his feet only to lose them and sit heavily with a gust and a groan, his legs straddling the peak.

  “Quick!” shouted Tim. “Down here!” At the end of the peak, he gave Eagleton a tug and the man found himself stepping into thin air. There was a sickening plummet of a yard or so before he landed upon a shed roof, slid the length of this slope, and met thin air once again, his trajectory carrying him over a narrow alley and onto the short, second-floor balcony of the next house. Eagleton stumbled against a door, which swung open, and he sprawled upon the floor within. He had no more than righted himself, with the help of some unseen agent, when there came a shout of surprise.

  Shoes slipped at slates, another shout rang out, and Ephram landed feet first upon the balcony. He took several steps into the room beyond and bowled Eagleton onto his back. Staggering upright, they had little chance of recovery before Thump came rolling after them.

  Eagleton had the dazed perception that Tim landed like a cat upon the balcony, Mailon like a bird. Another door opened and a third, older boy (the unseen agent) led them down a steep enclosed stairwell, through a darkened kitchen, and out into a small yard. All the while they could hear angry voices following them through the house and through the alley to the backyard which the fugitives crossed at full speed.

  There was a wooden crate before a fence, and Tim used this to vault to the other side. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump performed this feat with surprising speed, if less grace. Then the older boy handed Mailon to Eagleton, tossed the box over the fence, and climbed after. He was almost over when he was caught hold of by the leg, and he only just shook himself loose by kicking his assailant with his free foot.

  They were in another alley. A door opened some yards away and a young woman stepped out and beckoned. Blowing and puffing and wheezing, the Moosepathians offered to raise their hats to the girl as they passed and were startled to discover that their hats were gone.

  “Good heavens!” said Eagleton.

  The girl closed the door and escorted them down a dimly lit passage. The men were aware of the scent of tobacco smoke and of other pungent smells less familiar. The girl put a finger to her lips as they passed two doors, from behind which they could hear a dull murmur that reminded them of the crowd at the Shipswood. Perhaps there was even the clink of silverware.

  They were led onto a small unlit street, and the older boy lingered behind long enough to take the girl’s hand and thank her. She had a pretty round face, and she hardly looked into the boy’s eyes but smiled before she stepped back inside and closed the door.

  The ruckus on Danforth Street sounded distant, and the Moosepathians hoped for a moment to catch their breaths. “They’ll be scouring every lane from here to the mills,” said Timothy, and he led them down the dark street into yet another alley, and then through a series of confusing doorways and passages, till they came, exhausted by nerves and exertion, to an old, three-story house—the Faithful Mermaid—on the western end of the Portland waterfront.

  21. Sight Unseen

  “I think it’s beautiful,” said Cordelia with as much pride as if she had made the gown herself.

  Priscilla didn’t know if she cared anymore; it had caused a frightful row—or if not a row, exactly, then the sort of unhappy stir that invariably surrounded her mother whenever she felt she had been crossed.

  The article in question was behind the door, where Cordelia had hung it. Simply looking at it made Priscilla feel guilty and she wished it had been put in the closet. She hadn’t the will to approach it, now that she had prevailed upon her mother, with the help of her cousin and Great-aunt Delia. Goodness! she thought, and with very little humor. Cord is well named!

  Delia Frost had been waiting for them in the parlor when they arrived from Freeport by carriage that morning, and the old woman looked much aged since the previous fall. The winter had been a difficult one for Aunt Delia; she had spent the better portion of six weeks convalescing from a fall on the ice in her yard, only to be struck down by the influenza for almost a month. She looked pale and tired when they arrived but perked up with the presence of the young women, particularly her namesake.

  Cordelia may have been saddened to see her beloved Aunt Delia so weary and drawn, but she would not show it. Delia laughed, the redheaded bride-tobe was so lively with news and plans.

  “Cordelia!” admonished Grace. “Don’t be tiring out your aunt, now!

  “Oh!” scoffed Delia, with a wave of her cane. “Don’t talk nonsense! Maybe I’ll kick the bucket with a good laugh rather than fade away in a dark room listening to my own snores.”

  Upon hearing the phrase “kick the bucket,” Grace was so shocked she couldn’t find it in herself to exclaim her usual “Aunt Delia!”

  Cordelia, herself a little horrified (not by the expression but by the thought behind it), said it for Grace. “Aunt Delia!” Priscilla, who had seemed terribly out of sorts since arriving, gasped herself and snapped out of a grim preoccupation.

  The old woman laughed again, looking pleased with herself.

  And so they had lunch, served in the parlor, and talked about the coming wedding and the June Ball and finally what gowns they would buy. “I expect to see both of you fit to knock several men over at a single glance,” said Delia, which did raise the customary protest from Grace.

  “Gorgons did that,” said Cordelia, which made Priscilla laugh.

  “Well?” said Aunt Delia, undeterred. “What’s the point in buying a new gown and going to a ball if it’s not to spread a little heartache? The night I met Abner Frost, I thought he’d fall dead in his tracks to see me, and I was quite happy with the effect. Never mind that I had to throw him out a few years later. It was worth doing. Cordelia has apprehended one heart, that’s clear, but it doesn’t mean she can’t still be dangerous from a distance; and Priscilla”—here the old woman gestured once again with her cane—”! think your hour of conquest has arrived!”

  Priscilla looked startled, as if some secret had been discovered; even Cordelia cleared her throat in order to gain time to think. Grace was too distressed with the general tone of the conversation to notice her daughter’s reaction, but Aunt Delia picked up on it immediately.

  “We will purchase something very nice and decorous for both of them,” said Grace, taking command of the discussion. Her tone of voice indicated that the subject was tabled.

  Delia Frost was willing to cede the last word to Grace but not the gesture. She lent a certain weight to her own inclinations by insisting that everything be put on her own bill at the shop. Grace (who was not stingy with her own money, only careful) hesitantly acquiesced to this offer, vaguely suspicioning how the balance of the matter had subtly shifted.

  “Now, please me with something appropriate for that young woman,” said Delia quietly to Grace, “and not simply proper.”

  For Priscilla Morningside, the trip to the dress shop was charged with happy anticipation and a degree of wary foreknowledge of how her mother and Cordelia might come to loggerheads. She hadn’t expected, however, that the moment of confrontation would occur before they had even entered the store.

  The gown was in the window of Beal’s Dress Shop on Main Street, and Priscilla was enamored of it the instant she saw it.

  “Oh, Priscilla!” enthused Cordelia, and “Oh, Cordelia!” Grace sputtered, one on the heals of the other.

  Priscilla may have loved the gown on sight, but she could not imagine herself in it, which was all the more reason, according to her cousin, why she must try it on.

  “Most certainly!” agreed the proprietress, Mrs. Beal, when she considered Priscilla’s figure, and there was such sincere conviction in the assessment that Grace could not refuse her daughter’s right to try it on even if, according to her lights, it was ridiculous to consider buying it.

  Mrs. Beal was a canny saleswoman, however, and while she assisted Priscilla in th
e dressing room she expressed, in no very quiet tones, how much like her mother the young woman was. Priscilla was, in truth, the image of her paternal grandmother—her long dark hair, her faultless complexion and warm brown eyes, the maturity of her figure that was so well served when she appeared from the back room in the gown.

  Even Grace could not resist a gasp, but more out of trepidation than delight. Cordelia put her hands to the sides of her face and absolutely gaped.

  “There isn’t an alteration to be made!” proclaimed Mrs. Beal.

  Priscilla made a face. Mrs. Beal had taken her spectacles away and she looked vaguely comic as she squinted at the mirror across the room.

  “Here, dear,” said the shopwoman. “I believe they do suit you.”

  “Oh, my,” said Priscilla when she replaced the spectacles on her nose. The glasses did do something interesting to her face, but it was the gown that startled her—or, rather, herself in the gown. She hardly recognized the woman in the looking glass—a comely, even beautiful, vision; mature, and surprisingly confident in the dark, sleeveless bodice with gorgeous beading that hid yet at the same time drew attention to her full bosom. The contours of her lower portions were accented by a sheath of rich blue fabric, and the whole effect was magnificently lifted in soft folds about her feet and ankles. Her arms were frilled to the wrists in lace, and Mrs. Beal had set the entire revelation off with a dark blue velvet ribbon fastened about Priscilla’s graceful neck with an ivory cameo at her throat.

  “Oh, dear,” said Grace with very real sadness for her daughter, “it’s much too—”

  Tears were in Cordelia’s eyes. “Priscilla! You are—”

  “—expressive,” said Priscilla’s mother.

  “—beautiful!” said her cousin.

  “It’s a little vivid, I think,” added Grace.

  “—stunning!” continued Cordelia.

  Grace was almost wringing her hands. “It’s very nice of Mrs. Beal to let you try it on, but—”