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

by Van Reid

  “Mailon?” Tim rubbed one eye, as if he might be seeing incorrectly. He sat up. His father, too, considered Mailon as if for the first time. So deep was everyone’s concentration that no one heard Mrs. Spark’s purposeful tread along the worn carpet of the third-story hall till she was at the doorway, mended trousers in hand and peering down at Mailon as if at a drunk in church.

  “I want you to try these on,” she said to Thaddeus, shaking the trousers at him. “Mr. Thump put a sturdy rip in them and I just hope I haven’t shortened the seat too much.”

  “Is it late?” wondered Tim.

  Thaddeus caught the trousers in midair and midyawn

  “And you, young man—!” said Mrs. Spark to Mailon Ring.

  “I am sorry, ma’am,” said Mailon.

  “Be happy you’re not the child of Thaddeus Spark!”

  Mailon’s eyes widened. He couldn’t think of anything that would have made him happier. Thaddeus let out something like a growl.

  Mrs. Spark said, “He refused a sum of money for his son from those gentlemen last night, but I wouldn’t let him refuse it for someone else’s.” Mailon’s expression was proof that he understood very little of this. “But I’m not giving it over to you just so it can be put into a bottle for Burne Ring,” she continued despite Mailon’s opened mouth.

  “They were going to give me money?” asked Tim.

  “Chief, you be quiet,” said Thaddeus. His wife’s opinions were not new to him, but her conclusions were, and he wanted to listen carefully.

  “There’s a corner room down the hall,” she was saying, “and you can stay there, if your father lets you. I wouldn’t consider that if I weren’t ready to toss you in a tub and see what’s left once you’ve soaked all morning.”

  Mailon’s expression altered appreciably from wonder to trepidation.

  “Timothy.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “They’ll be needing you downstairs. If you can clamber around rooftops and rescue gentlemen from precarious circumstance then I guess you can wash dishes and sweep floors.” Timothy looked a little like Mailon, his eyes wide, his mouth turned down at the corners. “Show a leg!” said his mother.

  Timothy leaped from bed like a shot and scrambled into the clothes that hung haphazardly over the low footboard.

  “You come with me,” said Mabel Spark to Mailon, her voice noticeably softer. She laid a hand on the shoulder of Mailon’s greasy coat and marched the child down the hall. “I’ll have one of the boys haul water up, and you can wear some of Timothy’s old clothes.”

  Tim pulled his shirt over his head and leaned into the hall. His small friend looked uncertain of Mother Spark’s intent, and Tim (a sympathetic fellow) shouted after them, “Don’t worry, Mailon! It doesn’t hurt much, after she stops scrubbing!”

  The socks Tim had draped over the foot of his bed early that morning were still wet, and his sneakers were stiff and damp, but he found dry socks in a dresser drawer and he yanked his shoes on with a series of squeaks (from the shoes) and grunts (from himself). He had tied his sneakers and was ready to race downstairs when his father spoke up. “Tim,” said Thaddeus. He still held Mr. Thump’s trousers and hadn’t risen from the chair. “Come here.”

  “Yes?” said Tim as he approached his father. The morning had already supported more than its share of surprises and he looked doubtful about what would come next.

  Thaddeus leaned forward, clutched his boy by the arm, and pulled him onto his lap. The tousled and towheaded seven year old looked only slightly put out to be treated so and knew better than to fight it. Thaddeus leaned back with his arms around Tim and held him there for the length of several long breaths. Then the father said softly, “That a boy,” and let his son go. Tim raced out without a look back, only to stop and peek back into the room.

  “Mr. Thump and his friends were going to give me money?” he asked.

  “Go!” said Thaddeus.

  “Tim, send Davey up with the tub and some soapy water,” called Mabel

  Thaddeus grunted. He had spent the morning pondering the reality of people like Fuzz Hadley in relation to Tim and the rest of his family. Thaddeus had managed to keep out of reach of Adam Tweed, the former gang leader on the western end of the Portland waterfront; he had never considered knuckling under Fuzz Hadley, who had yet to secure his position now that Tweed was in jail. Thaddeus had understood the possible danger to himself but had never imagined that his children might be put in harm’s way. Certainly he had never imagined that his suggestion to Tim that he look after Mr. Thump could end up on the roofs of Danforth Street with two of his sons (and little Mailon Ring, for goodness’ sakes!) being pursued by Fuzz and his gang.

  Thaddeus’s first thought was to wring Fuzz’s neck, and he could probably do it; but the truth was that Fuzz hadn’t a notion he was chasing anyone other than Mr. Thump and his friends. Thaddeus was a practical man besides, and there was too much chance of landing in jail and too little chance that anyone better would step into Fuzz’s place.

  Thaddeus was more angry with himself than anyone else. There had been something of a game about his dealings with Fuzz till his sons were caught up in it; now the whole business must be put paid somehow.

  He was still in his chair, thinking how to deal with Fuzz Hadley’s strong-arm tactics, when Davey came puffing down the hall with an empty washtub slung over one shoulder and a pail sloshing in hand. “Another?” Thaddeus heard Davey say when the young man reached the corner room.

  “Yes,” said Mabel. “And see if your father has tried on those pants.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Thaddeus, when Davey stopped at the door.

  “Is Mailon staying with us?” Davey asked.

  “Go get some more water,” said Thaddeus.

  The taverner stood up, when his older son was gone, and surveyed the mended trousers. They were certainly made of fine stuff, and Mabel’s sewing was next to invisible. Thaddeus wondered where Mr. Thump’s coat was. (The man had lost his hat.) Mabel had brushed and blotted the whole suit, and, with the seat of the trousers mended, it would be like new. Thaddeus held the waist of the trousers up to his own and considered what he would look like in them. Suddenly, he was anxious to try them on, and the coat and vest with them.

  “Thaddeus!” came Mabel’s voice.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. He had gotten out of his own trousers and was only putting a leg into Mr. Thump’s.

  “Thaddeus!” Mabel’s voice came from the hall now.

  Thaddeus Spark hopped to the door and peered out. His wife was pale, her eyes as wide as had been Mailon’s only minutes before. “Mabel?” he said.

  “Thaddeus,” she said. “It’s Mailon.”

  Thaddeus was struggling with Mr. Thump’s trousers now, hopping on one foot while he ran the other out the cuff. “Mailon? What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s Mailon,” she said again. “He’s—He’s ... a girl!”

  31. Though It Was Saturday

  It was Thump’s clever idea to look for the address of W. Siegfried and Son in the telephone directory at the clerk’s desk in the Bangor station house. Thump was abashed at the praise that this notion inspired from his friends, and he insisted that it was got from Mr. Moss, who similarly found a haber-dasher for Mister Walton several weeks ago.

  The clerk at the station house was accommodating and he poured through the ledger himself, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump looking over his shoulder and Sparky peering from the back row, as it were. Sparky admitted to having picked up a phone once or twice and turning the crank; he had listened to the voice on the other end inquiring what help it could be, but he had never attempted to put one to use. He was disappointed that his new acquaintances weren’t actually going to make a call, but he thought it interesting that a person could find someone’s address in this manner.

  “Some months ago,” said Ephram to Sparky, when they were riding in a hired cab for an address on Union Street, “I cut an item from the Eastern Argus that concer
ned the finer points of telephony etiquette. I have found it to be of immense comfort when I employ that instrument and would be more than glad to copy it out and send it to you.” He expressed this with a mild smile.

  Sparky received the offer with an open-mouthed sort of expression that seemed to indicate he hadn’t heard Ephram properly. The Bangor man was fiddling with the cracked molding around the cab window and managed to extract a sliver of wood by his labors. Without taking his puzzled gaze from Ephram, he picked his teeth with the splinter, which activity occasioned a similar expression on the Moosepathian faces. “I’ve picked one of them up once or twice,” said Sparky again, which seemed circuitous to them. The cab was pulling up before their destination, however, and the subject of telephones and their proper usage fell by the way.

  The Moosepathians had been to Bangor once before, but that visit had been a brief one, rendered hectic by the transportation and sudden loss of a mysterious chest and cut short by pursuit of a gang of latter-day pirates. Bangor’s South Station stood beside the historied Penobscott River and boasted among its sights a panoply of masts and hulls, restless upon the deep water.

  They were quite pleased with it all, though the eastern aspect of the sky, as they looked over the river and the ships, was that of impending storm. It was not common to see weather looming from the east—the prevailing patterns of Maine’s climate arise from western precincts—but sometimes the winds back up and the ocean pushes dark clouds back over the mainland. Eagleton thought the weather strange, and it made him thoughtful.

  Traffic was brisk on Union Street; the avenue was filled with wagons and rigs, and the trolley was climbing up the hill. Stepping from their hired carriage, Thump tipped his hat to an impressive matron as she walked by, and Ephram and Eagleton also attempted to doff their missing chapeaus. Enough concentration was needed for this courtesy that they lost track of their feet, but after Sparky helped them up again and they had dusted themselves off they were ready to present themselves to the publisher.

  There was actually a bookseller on the first floor, and they pressed their noses to the window in order to consider the stacks of publications and well-ordered shelves before entering the little door to one side and climbing the staircase to the second story.

  At this threshold, as at every threshold they had passed together, Leander Spark paused to raise a forefinger before his face and shake it. Eagleton had taken note of this ritual when they got into the carriage and also when they got out, but he unconsciously displayed his curiosity at the door on Union Street.

  “Doorways are very chancy places, you know,” said Sparky.

  “Are they?” said Eagleton.

  “No place more obliging to the evil eye,” said the big man, and just mouthing the words evil eye he was compelled to repeat the gesture.

  “Really?” said an astonished Eagleton. He shook his own finger before his face just to try it out before he followed Ephram and Thump up the narrow staircase. Sparky lumbered after.

  A similarly narrow hallway bisected the upper portion of the building, and they leaned back from the doors as they passed them, considering the names on each, till they came to one that announced the presence of W. Siegfried and Son: Publishers of Fine Books. Several gentle raps at this portal did not elicit any response, and the members of the club would have left the hall to discuss further possibilities on the sidewalk had Sparky not grumbled something under his breath, reached for the knob, and turned it.

  The door swung open with a shudder and a creak. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had imagined a publisher’s office to be filled with banging presses producing hills of books and bustling workers—like gnomes in an old fairy tale—with stacks of paper in their arms and pens over their ears.

  “Perhaps they are closed on Saturdays,” said Eagleton as they peered into the room beyond.

  The atmosphere that greeted them was silent and desiccated; piles of books (not all orderly) and desks lost beneath stacks and spills of paper seemed to have drawn all moisture and life from their surroundings. Light from the windows on one side of the room spilled over the dark floor. One shadow flickered past Thump’s line of sight and he started, but it was only that of a pigeon soaring between the windows and the sun. On the other side of the room stood another door.

  “They appear to be closed,” said Eagleton. He could see a grand bookcase to their left, and, even at this distance, he recognized the many instances of the very imprint that had instigated their journey. His eye followed the line of shelves to a desk, a conch shell precariously balanced atop a listing stack of papers and a pair of spectacles reflecting some of the light from the windows opposite.

  Eagleton flinched and leaned further into the room. Past the glimmer from the windows and through the glass of those spectacles, Eagleton detected two eyes glaring in his direction. Slowly, above the spectacles, a round, balding head seemed to form itself out of the shadows, and, below the lenses, there appeared a frowning, jowly mouth and chops. The face simply stared, and Eagleton wondered if he wasn’t actually looking at an extremely successful portrait of an exceedingly cheerless man.

  “Good morning?” said Eagleton.

  “Yes?” said Ephram.

  “Good morning?” said Eagleton again.

  Thump then saw the man behind the stack of papers and said, “Hmmm?”

  The eyes behind the spectacles did not blink. The mouth beneath frowned a little deeper. “It’s Saturday,” said the mouth in a tone similar to that of a child who finds overcooked asparagus on his plate.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Eagleton.

  The inner door opened at this juncture, and a small, bent, gray man came into view. “Mr. Mullett?” he was saying. “Did I hear a knock at the door? Oh.” This last remark was made in the direction of the men in the hallway. “Good morning,” said the elderly fellow. He adjusted his spectacles in an attempt to see the imaginary hats that Ephram and Eagleton were holding to their chests. “Mr. Mullett, we have guests,” he pronounced.

  “It’s Saturday,” said the voice from behind the desk.

  “Certainly it is,” said the older man, “but that fact does not excuse inconsideration. Come in, gentlemen. You must forgive us. We don’t often take business on Saturday and habitually use it as time to catch up on correspondence and bookkeeping.”

  Still pressing his nonexistent hat to his chest, Eagleton stepped into the room and said, “Good morning, sir. We are the Moosepath League.”

  “Are you?” said the older man, his eyes wide.

  “We have come from Portland,” said Ephram.

  The gray head nodded agreeably.

  “It had never occurred to us till last night how very many of your authors we have read,” continued Eagleton.

  “Oh?”

  “Or, rather, how very many of our favorite authors are published under the aegis of your company.”

  “It is very good of you to say so, sir.”

  “Not at all. We are great admirers of your imprint.”

  “We are searching for someone,” said Thump, who was quick to get to the heart of a matter.

  “Very good, Thump,” said Eagleton.

  “How can we help you?” said the elderly man. “I am William Siegfried.” He encouraged the three men (and Sparky behind them) to come into the room. His hand was shaken diligently by each of the Moosepathians as they introduced themselves and given a puzzled sort of press by Leander Spark. (There had been an unmistakable urgency to the telegram that Sparky had received from his cousin that seemed at odds with the scene before him.) “This is Mr. Mullett,” Mr. Siegfried was saying.

  They greeted Mr. Mullett with polite nods.

  “It’s Saturday,” said Mr. Mullett. It was difficult to know what he was doing before the interruption; when they left, Sparky would opine that the man had been sleeping.

  “Mr. Mullett seems to think it is Saturday,” said Mr. Siegfried with a quiet smile.

  The Moosepathians looked concerned. They had
understood that it was Saturday.

  “May I inquire who it is that you are looking for, gentlemen?” asked Mr. Siegfried, before the day of the week could be positively identified. He was not palsied, and his eye was bright, but he might have been a little infirm; he rested himself against the desk opposite Mr. Mullett. Mr. Mullett, for his part, only continued to stare and look cross.

  Thump stepped forward. He clasped his hands behind his back and raised his bearded chin. “We are in search of Mrs. Roberto, sir,” he said.

  “Mrs. Roberto,” said Mr. Siegfried musically. He cocked his head to one side, as if assessing the name.

  “Mrs. Dorothea Roberto,” amended Thump.

  “Hmmm,” said Mr. Siegfried, which hmmm was very different from Thump’s hmmms. “Have you ever heard of a Mrs. Dorothea Roberto, Mr. Mullett?”

  “I have not,” said Mr. Mullett, and he finally seemed to blink.

  “She owns a very many of your books,” Eagleton informed the publisher.

  “Oh?”

  “If the collection we saw answers for her possession,” said Ephram, “she owns nothing but your books. Or, rather, the only books she owns are yours.” He wanted to be accurate.

  “Is that so?”

  Ephram nodded.

  “And you say that many of your favorites are published by us. It is quite gratifying.”

  “Perhaps she is a subscriber,” said Eagleton, “and you might have her address.”

  “Oh,” said the elderly man dubiously.

  “It is a long story,” said Ephram. He had read this phrase in a book—in fact, in several books.

  “We specialize in them,” said Mr. Siegfried pleasantly.

  “I found her card in my pocket,” said Thump.

  “Her card?”

  “With only her name,” said Thump.

  “We fear that she may be in danger,” said Eagleton.

  Mr. Siegfried did look concerned.

  “You see,” said Ephram, “the presence of her card in Thump’s pocket was mysterious.”

  “There was a play,” said Eagleton.

  “I discovered it on New Year’s,” said Thump.