by Jane Langton
"Let me go with you," said Mary.
But Miss Herpitude was adamant. She plucked at Mary's sleeve and whispered in her hear. "Never mind. You young people run along. I'm going to write it all down, and then I'll give it to you in the morning. That's much the best way."
But after Philip had driven Mary home and stood in the starlight with her at her front door and gallantly refrained from attempting to kiss her good night (was she disappointed?) and after he had driven off again, Mary walked into the house and announced to Grandmaw that she was going back to the library to see what was troubling Alice. "I'll come, too," said Grandmaw.
"All right, fine," said Mary. "That's fine."
They found Alice at Mary's desk in Mary's office. She started up violently when she heard Mary's key in the door and stared at them with a whitewashed face. Then she put her hand on her heart. Grandmaw Hand took her in her arms and patted her back. "Whatever is the matter, Alice?"
"Oh, Florence, I'm so afraid. What should I do? I just don't know what to do."
Mary turned on the desk lamp in the main hall, and looked around. The rest of the great room was shadowy, with the dark doorways of the other rooms opening off it, and the deep channel of the stack wing a hollow black tunnel. Emerson's high seated figure was a white mass in the darkness, and down from the dim balcony looked the marble effigies of Concord's nineteenth century worthies. Were their eyes still open? Did they never sleep?
Grandmaw began to walk Miss Herpitude up and down. Then Miss Herpitude blew her nose and drew herself up. "Now, now," she said. "I won't be foolish any more. I'm going to tell you the whole story, right from the beginning, and I'll go right on to the end." She waved her arms with the enthusiastic little gesture both of them knew so well and started to walk briskly up and down in the little alcove of locked glass cases dedicated to Henry Thoreau. Then she stopped, and cleared her throat. "You see, I knew it wasn't true, what she claimed. So I couldn't let..."
Her sentence was never finished. Down from the balcony above her plummeted interrupting death—a white object, toppling forward and downward, turning over in its descent and striking Alice Herpitude on the back of the head. She fell instantly, her slight figure folded over, slipping and dropping to the floor. The white object fell beside her with a smash, shivering asunder. Mary gave a cry and threw out her hand. She dropped to her knees, looking from the broken, bleeding skull of her beloved old friend to the calamitous scattered shards that were all that was left of the plaster bust of Louisa May Alcott. Then Mary broke into racking sobs, and put her hand over her mouth. Across the huge plaster bun that had formed the back of Louisa's head, smearing the twisted, massy knot of plaster hair, was the blood of the woman she had struck down.
Grandmaw was the one who held together. She ran to the light switch and turned it on. The hall filled with light from the old-fashioned globe lamps and then from the new fluorescent fixtures under the balcony. Then Grandmaw started for the stairs. Mary jerked to her feet. "No, no," she said. "Don't go up there." She ran after her and grasped at her dress, sobbing. "No, no, please, no." But Grandmaw pulled Mary's hand away, and scrambled up the stairs, Mary stumbling after her. At the top Mary used all her tall strength to set Grandmaw aside. Then she stood shaking in front of her, staring down into the black cavern of the stacks. The little signs that announced the catalogue numbers marched into darkness along the rows of shelves. 92 Biography, 88 Travel. Mary felt a hysterical giggle rising inside her. One of the little signs should be labelled Murderers, because whoever had tipped the bust of Louisa May Alcott off the balcony must have filed himself in one of those corridors. They moved slowly down the aisle, turning on the light switches at the ends of rows. It was a foolhardy thing to do. But they found nothing.
"He must have ducked downstairs and gotten out down below," said Grandmaw. She hurried down the stairs again and picked up the telephone on the main desk to call the police. Mary followed her slowly, humping her shoulders, holding the sides of her face in her hands. Oh, Alice, Alice. Charley, was it you?
*48*
Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the Hair—
A prank nobody knew but them
Lost, in the Sepulchre— —Emily Dickinson
Homer Kelly came in like thunder, his face extraordinary. He saw Mary leaning, pale and drawn, against the desk and stopped short. Then he turned to the wall and struck it a great blow with his clenched fist. "My God, all the desk man said was 'one of the librarians...' "
Then he recovered himself and walked unsteadily over to the Thoreau alcove where Jimmy Flower had already started to work. Jimmy looked at him and shook his head, a sign of pain. There was a bright flash from the photographer's equipment. Homer knelt down and looked at Alice Herpitude. Then he got up and went to Mary and took her roughly by the arm, looking savage. "Where were you?" he said. "Were you anywhere near her?"
Mary laughed lightly. "Oh, I was up on the balcony, pushing over p-pieces of sculpture."
Homer glared at her. Then he saw that one of her eyes looked queer, with the water in it. He turned abruptly away, and started questioning Grandmaw Hand. Grandmaw was holding up heroically, being factual and terse. She was a remarkable woman.
Dr. Allen came in with his bag and bent over Miss Herpitude's body. Mary turned away. The investigation didn't interest her any more. She heard Homer tearing into Harold Vine.
"You lost him? When? How? Why in hell...?"
"Gee, I'm sorry."
"Gee, you're sorry," sneered Homer. "Oh, damn it, it's my own fault. There we were, assuming Charley was too much of a gentleman to do anything nasty or unsporting like run away and kill somebody. Oh, my God, why didn't I go on ahead and put him in the lockup this afternoon, in spite of the D.A.?" He beat the side of his head with his fist. "Well, okay, Harold, so what happened?"
"Oldest trick in the book. Charley headed up toward Main Street, just ambling along, then he wandered down the Milldam until he got to Monument Square by the Civil War Memorial (you know, where it says 'Faithful unto Death'), and then he just sat down for a while, leaning against it and looking up at the sky, like looking for airplanes, only there weren't any. I felt awful stupid, walking along about half a block behind him, pretending to be minding my own business. I had to walk past him and go around the corner there by the Middlesex Fire Insurance Company. Well, after a while he got up and went toward the Colonial Inn, where you folks were. I saw you in there, having a beer. He went in, and I went in, and then he went toward the Men's Room. So, stupid jerk that I am, I waited for him to come out. And of course he went out the window. I guess I'm not much good at tailing. He must have known I was there."
Homer turned to Jimmy Flower. "How did he get in here and out again?"
"The coalbin window. All the others were locked from the inside. There wasn't even hardly any coal in it, so he may have got away without any coal dust on him anywhere. I've got the state police out on the road, looking for his car."
But then the phone rang. It was Morey Silverson, at the Goss house. He had found Charley right at home, all tucked up in bed.
"Well, thank God for that," said Jimmy. "What did he say he was doing after he got rid of Harold Vine?"
"Oh, some story about just wanting to walk around for the last time under the stars as a free man," said Morey. "No, he didn't think anybody saw him. He says he cut down to the river behind the Department of Public Works, then worked his way back up to the Milldam, got his car and went home to bed."
"Well, he's in for it now," said Jimmy lugubriously. "And so are we. If it hadn't been for the dumb D.A ... Now, we're all going to be drawn and quartered."
*49*
Where was I? ... the world lay about at this angle... —Henry Thoreau
Next day Mary walked into the police station and resigned her job. Homer looked at her stupidly, then back at his papers. "All right, if that's what you want," he said.
"It is," said Mary. She went back to the library and e
xamined her desk. She looked for the letter Alice had said she was going to write for her and found no sign of it. Then she received a call from Howard Swan. He was speaking for the library trustees. Would Mary be willing to be acting head librarian for a while? Her official appointment would come through later. Mary would. Then Edith Goss came wandering into the library with a long face, seeking sympathy and comfort. She seemed genuinely distressed. Impulsively Mary offered her a job. They would be short-handed now, and she could use an extra pair of hands. Edith could paste labels in new books and put the returned ones back on the shelves. Edith was grateful. She didn't want to go home. She was restless and wanted to start right to work.
The next visitor to get by the patrolman at the door was Philip Goss. He was leaving town. That was all right because he had been questioned the night before and given a clean bill of health. After dropping Mary off he had gone straight home to his apartment and played poker with George Jarvis and a couple of old friends. He hadn't even left the table. Now he was off to Buffalo to see a client. There were lines of care across his fine forehead. "Hard times," he said briefly. He looked at her meaningfully. "When this awful business is over, maybe we can begin again."
Roland Granville-Galsworthy was going away, too. (Be grateful for small blessings.) He caught Mary out of doors at lunchtime, and said so. Then he wrestled her behind a bush and gave her a hard time. "Oi want a little kiss," he said. Mary was still too much in a state of shock to put up much resistance. The rest of the day she found herself breaking out into convulsive shaking. It would be an enormous satisfaction never to see him again. He claimed to be going back to Oxford to the chair of American Literature. A liar to the end.
Jimmy Flower's men were there part of the day. The District Attorney himself came out, and stood around looking glum, with Miss O'Toole hovering beside him. Homer came in with them, but he hardly spoke to Mary. He merely gave her a moody look and handed her some of the morning newspapers. The headlines were very bad. One of them practically called the District Attorney a murderer of old women. Here was a clever one—LOUISA MAY ALCOTT SLAYS LIBRARIAN.
Mary had had enough of the whole thing. She felt tired and ill. Stiffly she reached up to the shelf labelled Summer Reading and started to take out the books on the High School reading list for the fall. Harden over, that will stop the shaking. Tighten up. Her fingers picked tensely at the books. She dropped one. It was The Poems of Emily Dickinson. That belonged on the list. She picked it up and put it on the cart. Then she took it off the cart again and looked at it. It was the new copy of Volume I, to replace the copy Elizabeth Goss had stolen from the library. What was the page that had been torn out? Page 123, wasn't it? Mary found the page and glanced at the poem printed on it. "If the foolish, call them 'flowers'..." For once Emily's private language and crabbed mannerisms irritated her. She flipped the page over and began reading the poem on the other side—
In Ebon Box, when years have flown
To reverently peer,
Wiping away the velvet dust
Summers have sprinkled there!
To hold a letter to the light—
Grown Tawny now, with time—
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled cheek
Among its stores to find—
Plucked far away, some morning—
By gallant—mouldering hand!
A curl, perhaps, from foreheads
Our Constancy forgot—
Perhaps, an Antique trinket—
In vanished fashions set!
And then to lay them quiet back—
And go about its care—
As if the little Ebon Box
Were none of our affair!
Suddenly Mary could bear no more. She didn't want to think about Elizabeth Goss, who had gone mad, or about Ernest Goss, who had been shot to death, or about Charley Goss, who was under arrest, or about Alice Herpitude, who had been...
No, no, don't think about it at all! Mary shook herself, snapped the book shut and thrust it back on the cart. Then she walked stiffly to Alice's office, shut the door softly and burst into tears.
*50*
Essential Oils are wrung—
The Attar from the Rose
Is not expressed by Suns—alone
It is the gift of Screws— —Emily Dickinson
Because of the violent nature of her death, Alice Herpitude's funeral was a little delayed. Mary didn't want to go to it. She didn't know how she could go through with it. If she hadn't had to sing the Ave Verum with the rest of the choir she might have begged off. But she had to. So she sat in the balcony of the big white church, facing sideways to the pulpit behind one of the tenors, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. Shrinking back behind the tenor, she looked past the wooden box that held the body of Alice Herpitude to the tiny face of the minister, perched on the tip of the tenor's large nose. Mr. Patterson's words flowed like honey, filling up the empty interstices of her mind, blocking and dulling her awareness. But they must not. Prick up, prick up like thorns the hairs of your attention! Mary glanced over the congregation and remembered the Sunday morning when she had looked down and seen for the first time the look of terror on Alice's face. She had seen it there often after that. Of what had Alice been afraid? The choirmistress lifted her hand, and the choir rose.
"Ave, ave verum Corpus..."
In the rainbow coma at the edge of Mary's swimming vision the heads of the mourning friends of Alice Herpitude were distributed in rows like round balls strung on a string, shimmering like decorations from a Christmas tree, glistening with bright glorious lights.
The ceremony at the graveside was over. She stumbled over the dry grass, turning away with the others. She shook her head at Gwen and Tom, and straggled off by herself. But there was someone standing beside her car. It was Homer Kelly. He motioned at the car door. "Get in," he said.
He was saying goodbye, too. He would be assisting the County Prosecutor and the District Attorney in the preparation of the case against Charley Goss, working out of the County Court House in East Cambridge, living in his own rooms off Brattle Street. Then, he said, maybe he could get back to his book on Henry Thoreau. Homer stirred uneasily behind the wheel and glanced sideways at Mary. "Concord is too rich for my blood, anyway," he said. "I can't seem to think sensibly about Thoreau or Emerson or any of the rest of them unless I'm far away from here, in Kalamazoo or somewhere."
"You mean you've lost your critical viewpoint? You surely weren't getting fond of them?"
"What do you mean, fond? I don't believe in being fond of the subject of a biography. You lose your objectivity. You've got to be strictly impersonal, strictly impersonal. And all the stuff I've written while I've been here seems to have lost something I used to have. I don't know..."
"That cutting edge, perhaps?"
Homer frowned and was silent. He drove out Barrett's Mill Road to her house and slowed down. Then he speeded up again. "Come on. Let's go rent a canoe at the South Bridge Boat House." Mary wondered dully where Rowena was, but she tried to cooperate. Jump, Mary—jump just a little longer. "Shall we have another fight?" she said.
Homer smiled at her. There was a funny expression on his craggy face. "You know I like to fight with you."
It was a heavy, humid day. Over the river the trees piled up like thunderheads. The duckweed lay in a light green scum along the shore. There were tall spikes of cardinal flower and loosestrife along the edges of the water. They drifted silently. Mary leaned her head back and folded her arms, trying to let her mind go blank. Just listen to the birds, don't think about anything. She turned her head and looked in the pickerel weed for the two that were singing, splitting hairs.
Homer looked at her and started to speak. Then he stopped, cleared his throat and started again. "Charley Goss means a lot to you, doesn't he?"
"Charley? Of course he does."
"I mean—what I means is, how much?"
"Well, he's a friend of mine in a whole lot of trouble, that's how much."
Homer digested this, and seemed satisfied. "What about this Ghoolsworthy fellow? How long have you known him?"
"Just since this spring."
There was a pause. "He seems to think a lot of you," said Homer, looking carefully along his paddle blade. He dipped it clumsily in the water and pulled hard.
"Oh, that's just me," said Mary. "I always seem to attract the goofy, adam's-appley ones."