Time at the Top

by Edward Ormondroyd

  “Well,” Robert said, coloring, “I guess he did mention that it wouldn’t hurt if I put in a good word for him when I saw Mama.”

  “And were you going to?”

  “Well, my goodness, Vic! I haven’t said anything to her yet, have I?”

  “Oh, Robert Lincoln Walker, you are the despair of my life!”

  “Well, thunderation!” he burst out. “Women just don’t understand. I don’t know why I don’t run away and join the army right now, and work my way up through the ranks! You might take me seriously then. Mama thinks I’m still in curls, and you treat me like a six-year-old. Rag, rag, rag! At least Mr. Sweeney knows what a fellow feels. He knows how to treat a fellow. He let me drive his mare two miles, and he gave me a puff of his cigar!”

  “He what?”

  “There! See? That’s just what I mean! You don’t think a fellow ever grows up. What am I supposed to do, wait till I’m eighty for my first cigar?”

  “Oh, Vicky,” Susan broke in soothingly, “don’t look so shocked. It isn’t fatal. How did it taste?” she asked Robert.

  “Well … I guess I coughed a little. But a fellow could get used to it if he tried. And besides,” rounding on Victoria again, “I’ll bet Papa would have let me do the same, if I’d asked him. Hey, Vic. Hey, wait a minute, don’t cry.”

  “What Papa would have done,” she sniffled, “and what Mr. Sweeney does are as different as night and day. Don’t you dare disgrace P-P-Papa’s memory by com-comparing them.”

  “I’m sorry, Vic, honest. I didn’t mean — I guess I got riled.”

  “Here’s a hanky,” said Susan helplessly.

  Victoria hiccuped once or twice and dried her eyes. “Thank you, Sue, I’m all right now. I’m sorry if I ragged you, Bobbie. I know you’re growing up, really I do. But you ought to be grown up enough to see what Mr. Sweeney’s trying to do: he’s trying to worm his way into your good graces. It’s all very well for you to think he’s a fine fellow and to fall for his flattery, but don’t you see? — it’s Mama who will have to marry him. It’s Mama we’re really talking about, not you.”

  “Well, why doesn’t she send him packing, then?” Robert said sulkily.

  “You know very well she’s tried. But he’ll never give up as long as he thinks he has a chance of getting her money. You know that that’s all he wants, don’t you?”

  “You can’t prove it.”

  “Prove it! I don’t have to prove it, I know it. All you have to do is look at him to know he’s a fortune hunter.”

  “He looks all right to me.”

  “Oh, what do boys know about these things? Of course he looks all right to you — he makes a special effort to. He wouldn’t get very far if he looked like a scoundrel, would he? Listen! Did you ever see him alone when he thought no one was looking?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I did. You know what he did? He looked at everything — the room and the furniture and the rugs and the curtains and the pictures — he simply devoured everything with his eyes; and all the time he kept rubbing his hands together. Rub, rub, rub …” As Victoria spoke she mimicked what she had seen. Susan was fascinated. What an actress this girl might have been! Her imitation of gloating greed was as convincing and chilling as the real thing. “And that,” said Victoria, “is what you want Mama to marry, is it?”

  “Well —”

  “Rub, rub, rub …?”

  “All right, all right. But what can we do about it? Listen, you never gave me a chance to tell you. You know the real reason why he drove me home? He didn’t just drop me and go back to town. He’s going to board at the Hollister’s. He says he’s going to lay siege to Mama, and he won’t let up till he’s carried the fort!”

  “Ahh!” said Victoria slowly. She shot a significant look at Susan. “So — he’s right next door. This is our chance, Sue!”

  “Oh, that isn’t Mr. Sweeney downstairs?” Susan said.

  “Goodness, no — that’s Mr. Branscomb. He’s a gentleman.”

  “He’s the lawyer who handles Mama’s money,” Robert added. “Hey, Vic, what do you mean, this is your chance? What have you two got up your sleeve?”

  “Oh, it’s just this crazy idea Vicky has,” Susan said uneasily. “I don’t —”

  “It isn’t a crazy idea,” Victoria said. “We just have to go through with it, now that the witch and the well have gone to all the trouble of bringing you here.”

  “Well?” Robert asked. “What well? What is all this mystery, anyway?”

  “I didn’t tell you everything, there wasn’t time,” Victoria said; and she proceeded to explain the part that she thought the wishing well had played in Susan’s arrival.

  “You mean,” Robert said when she finished, “that Susan was sent here to chase Mr. Sweeney off? That’s a major campaign! How are you going to do it, Sue?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Susan said helplessly. “Listen, just because I’m from the twentieth century doesn’t mean that I can do anything. I’m still just a girl, not a — a genie or something.”

  “We know that,” Victoria said. “We’re not going to just drop the whole thing in your lap and fold our hands. It’s up to all of us, of course. We have to think, think, think!”

  They thought.

  “Maybe,” Robert said, “if we really have to chase him off, maybe we could play ghosts. You know, dress up in sheets and sneak into the Hollister’s after dark and haunt him? Hey, come to think of it, there’s some old pieces of chain out in the stable! We could rattle them and groan —”

  “Oh pooh!”

  “No, listen! Remember when Papa read ‘Sleepy Hollow’ to us? It worked on Ichabod Crane, didn’t it — playing ghost?”

  “Oh, Bobbie! The whole point was that there was this legend about the ghost on the horse, and Ichabod Crane was half expecting to meet him anyway. Mr. Sweeney isn’t Ichabod and Hollister’s isn’t haunted. It’s probably the least haunted house in the whole county, Bobbie.”

  “Well, it was just an idea …”

  They thought some more.

  “Wait a minute,” Susan said. “You say he’s after your Mama’s money. What if he thought your Mama had lost it all?”

  “Ah!” said Victoria, widening her eyes. “He’d show a clean pair of heels then! But why should he think that?”

  “Well, I just thought we could give him the idea somehow. Send him a letter, or — I don’t know.”

  “That just might do it, though,” Victoria mused. “If only you were taller, Bobbie! We could put a pair of false whiskers on you, and you could meet him somewhere and scrape up an acquaintance and say” — she jumped up and assumed an exaggerated masculine swagger — “ ‘Heard about Mrs. Walker? Lost all her money, poor woman. Extraordinary case, sir!’ ”

  “That’d be fun,” Robert laughed. “But he’d recognize me, Vic, he’s not blind.”

  “I know …”

  There was another interval of cogitation.

  “Wait a minute!” Robert suddenly whispered, “He wouldn’t recognize Susan!”

  “Ah!” said Victoria. They looked at Susan hopefully.

  “Don’t stare at me like that,” Susan said. “I’m trying to think.” She was ahead of them in realizing that Mr. Sweeney wouldn’t recognize her. And it was no use protesting that it was none of her business. The whole course of recent events had made it her business. She was it, willy-nilly.

  Ever since Robert’s mention of “Sleepy Hollow” her mind had been turning over memories of all the books she had read. There should be an idea somewhere among them … She thought of Mr. Toad, humbugging his way across the country in his washerwoman’s disguise. No good in this case … Disguises and acting, though — that was right in her line. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she muttered. Let’s see, there was … Tom Sawyer or—

  “Huckleberry Finn!” she cried. “Remember?”

  The Walkers both looked blank. “What’s that?” Robert asked.

  “You know!
It’s a book — Huckleberry Finn? Oh, maybe it hasn’t been written yet … Anyway, what was it now? They were going down the river on this raft. How did it go? Huck wanted to keep someone away from the raft, they were in a rowboat, I think … And he — ah! What would Mr. Sweeney do if your Mama had smallpox?”

  “Don’t,” said Robert in a thin voice.

  “No, no! I just mean if he thought she had it.”

  Victoria was staring at her open-mouthed. “Susan Shaw,” she whispered, “You positively frighten me.”

  “It worked in Huckleberry Finn. Is smallpox serious or not?”

  “Serious?” Victoria looked at her brother. “Remember Ginny Schmidt?” Robert nodded solemnly. “She died of it.”

  “All right! Don’t look so shocked, it has to be drastic if it’s going to work at all. It won’t chase him away if I just say your Mama’s lost her money — he’ll only come over to see if it’s true. We’ve got to scare him. Now, if I can just get him by himself for a while —”

  “Bobbie,” Victoria said decisively, “run and see if he’s anywhere in sight. Go on, go on, you can look out Mama’s window. Susan, that’s the most incredible idea I ever heard in my whole life! You should be a magician with a mind like yours!”

  “Oh, let me think, will you?” Susan said, chewing her knuckle.

  Robert came running back in a minute. “Yes, he’s in the Hollister’s backyard right now, smoking a cigar!” Then, in a dubious voice, “Listen, I don’t know about this. It’s a thumping big lie. I don’t know whether —”

  “It’s a stratagem,” Victoria said firmly. “It’s a kind of test. What would you do if you heard that I’d lost all my money and had smallpox?”

  “Don’t talk that way, Vic.”

  “What would you do? Would you run away?”

  “No, I’d bring you all my money, if I had any, and I’d nurse you back to health.”

  “All right! So would any real gentleman. Now, if Mr. Sweeney runs away, he isn’t fit to marry Mama, is he? And if he stays — oh,” she threw her hands in the air, “then I give up, he’s a better man than I thought. Anyway, we have to know. For Mama’s sake.”

  “I’ve got it!” Susan said. “I’m going to be a servant girl. Have you got that kind of a dress, Vicky?”

  “Umm … I guess you could wear my mourning dress, it’s all black. But the material’s too good for a—”

  “That’s all right, it could be a hand-me-down. Now, let’s see … I’ll need a little trunk or a bundle or something. I’m going to pretend I’m running away.”

  “Wait a minute.” Victoria rummaged around in her chest of drawers. “How about this old shawl?”

  “Yes, that’ll do. We can wrap a pillow up in it. Do servant girls wear hats? Never mind, I’ll pretend I came away so fast that I forgot mine. Does Mr. Sweeney know Mr. Branscomb?”

  “I don’t know. Do you, Bobbie?”

  “I don’t know — don’t think so. Why?”

  “The horse and buggy out front,” Susan explained. “If your Mama’s supposed to be sick the doctor would be here.”

  “Dr. Balch drives a dogcart,” Robert said.

  “Well, does he know Dr. Balch?”

  “I don’t think so,” Victoria said.

  “Oh, well, the whole thing’s a big gamble anyway. We’ll just have to hope. Help me off with this dress, Vicky.”

  “You may leave the room, Robert,” Victoria said. “I know, you can scout the territory. See what Maggie’s doing. We’ll have to smuggle Sue down the back stairs. Oh, this is all so exciting, I can’t stand it!”

  8. Susan’s Greatest Role

  Susan had not noticed Hollister’s before; it was on the opposite side of the Walker’s house from the garden where she had wandered during the night, and it could not be seen from Victoria’s room. It was a little square box of a place, deeply shaded by elms, with a chicken run along the far side.

  They crouched by a gap in the hedge, breathing hard and studying the enemy.

  “Beast!” Victoria hissed. “Look at him swagger!”

  “Here, smudge my face, will you?” Susan whispered. Robert grubbed up a handful of dirt. “Just a smidgen, now, don’t overdo it; nothing spoils a performance like a bad make-up job. Wish we’d brought a mirror. How’s my hair, Vicky? Muss it up a little, will you? Maybe you can pull some strands out of my braids. I want it kind of bird’s-nesty. Do you mind if I make just a little tear in the sleeve?”

  “Oh no. I don’t know why I kept the dress anyway, it’s too small for me now.”

  “Here, use my pocketknife, Sue.”

  “Thanks. There, that’s it. Now, let’s see … some wrinkles in my stockings.”

  “Do look the other way, Robert!”

  “There! Now please don’t giggle or anything, you’ll spoil the whole show.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t! I’m just ready to die!”

  “Me too,” said Robert in a shaking voice.

  Susan herself was feeling the familiar pangs of stage fright. ‘Calm down,’ she thought, ‘calm down, it won’t be any worse than last year when what’s-her-name forgot her lines and had hysterics …’ But she knew it could be much worse. This was not an audience already inclined to be sympathetic that she had to convince, but a man who was persistent and perhaps unscrupulous in getting what he wanted; a man, moreover, who didn’t know his lines, but would have to take all his cues from her. ‘Just feed him a little information at a time,’ she warned herself. ‘Build it up, don’t blurt it all out at once.’ She stood up, remembering all the servant girls she had read of in books or seen in the movies or on the stage. She would have to say “sir” frequently. It might be well to whine a bit …

  Now or never. She took a deep breath, squeezed through the hedge, and advanced to meet the foe.

  Mr. Sweeney was — handsome! She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. She was seized with panic. This distinguished man a scoundrel? Victoria must be mistaken! What was she doing here, what had she gotten herself into? She checked her approach. But no, she must go on—they were watching her; Victoria had said that they had to know; if she spoiled it now there might not be another chance.

  Her numbed legs would hardly propel her forward again. “Please, sir,” she quavered, dropping an awkward little curtsy.

  Mr. Sweeney removed his cigar, regarded her for a moment, then smiled. And with that smile Susan recognized whom she was dealing with. ‘Oho, you smoothie!’ she thought, with a surge of returning confidence. ‘I’ll bet you’ve been practicing that in front of a mirror! But if you think it’s going to make me swoon, you’re wrong.’ Now that she was closer her first impression of him began to change. Handsome, yes. But he held his cigar in a fastidious way, in a hand that was white and soft. His mustache was clipped with mathematical precision. His derby was tilted slightly to reveal a wave of black hair so perfect that it seemed to have been lacquered in place.

  “Ah, my dear,” he said in a smooth, low voice. “May I be of any assistance?”

  “Please, sir, I’m in awful trouble. I just lost my job — my position, I mean — through no fault of my own.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Sweeney murmured, “distressing, distressing.” His smile lost a little of its brilliance.

  “Please, sir, I just wanted to ask you a little favor, you looked like such a kind gentleman.”

  “Anything in my power, my dear. But may I suggest that you approach me later — say in two weeks’ time? I expect to be in circumstances then that will enable me to consider your application. If your references are suitable, of course.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir. But I didn’t mean you should hire me, though I’m sure it’d be a pleasure to work for a kind gentleman like you. I was hoping for a ride to town, if you’ll pardon me, sir.”

  “My dear, it pains me to have to say no. At any other time I would leap to your assistance. But it so happens that I do not intend to return to town for several days. I am here on a matter o
f some delicacy.” He drew on his cigar with a flourish, and fired that dazzling smile at her again. “A matter — I am sure you will understand — of the heart.”

  ‘Oh, you ham!’ she thought. ‘I suppose you expect me to giggle and blush.’ Blushing to order was impossible, but she did manage a fair giggle. “Oh, sir, I’m sure the lady will be the luckiest —”

  “Therefore,” Mr. Sweeney went on, “if you will be so kind, I will resume those tender reveries in which I was engaged when you first found me. Perhaps one of the agricultural gentlemen down the lane will give you a lift.”

  The scene was threatening to slip out of control. It was time to offer him the bait.

  “Oh, sir,” she sniffed, “I hate to go on bothering you, sir, but I don’t know where to turn. I am in trouble, sir. They turned me away without my wages.” ‘Ask me why,’ she prayed.

  “Really?” Mr. Sweeney murmured. “It grieves me even to entertain the idea, my girl, but perhaps you deserved it.” And with that he turned his back on her and began to walk away.

  “Oh, sir,” she bleated in sincere desperation, “wait!” She trotted after him, trying to think of what to say next. But all that would come to her was “wait.”

  Mr. Sweeney swung around on her. “Do not presume too far on my patience, miss! I can do nothing for you. No — stay.” He plunged a hand into his pocket, felt about carefully, and produced a dime. “If this can alleviate your distress in any measure I shall be gratified. No, no, do not thank me. Good day!”

  “Oh, you are a gentleman, sir, so kind of you. But begging your pardon, sir, I didn’t deserve to be turned away. I always gave satisfactory service —”

  “Good day!”

  “Satisfactory service,” she persisted, raising her voice. “Mrs. Walker always said —”

  Aha! That had hit the target. Why hadn’t she mentioned the name earlier? ‘He’s listening now,’ she thought; ‘throw out that lead about your wages again.’

  “Did I understand you to say Mrs. Walker?”

  “Yes, sir. I just came from her house. She was very sorry to turn me away without my—”