I found this position difficult to maintain. Patience was a more curious woman than her sister. Throughout a hurried meal she cross-examined me, and very thoroughly, about the points of interest I had covered on my walk. In my state of guilt and nerves it seemed to me that each question led me inevitably to the meeting at the fence. I don’t know today whether her curiosity was purely idle or whether there was design behind it. She had a way, had Patience Hieronomo, of sensing the most carefully guarded secret.
I do know that I was relieved when the meal was over. After a close inspection of the weather, Patience actually decided to use her car on the shopping expedition, although she did suggest that Amanda might fill the tank with gasoline. She further weakened the effect of her generosity by explaining her own desire to be back home again before Hoy and Glenn Hieronomo arrived.
“We’re grateful anyway,” said Amanda dryly. “Aren’t we, Anne?”
Patience looked at us blankly, and then got ponderously beneath a wheel as new and shiny as on the day it left the factory, a full five years before. We were halfway to the village when I suddenly recalled the already half-forgotten visitor to the cupola. I was glad of something safe to talk about. I described the incident and the woman in detail.
“Is she a friend of yours, Aunt Amanda?”
Great-aunt Amanda gave me a queer look. “You say you saw this woman in the barn?”
“Very clearly. She was standing in the cupola. She was blonde and middle-aged, not much over five feet tall, and wore a coonskin coat.”
Patience looked up from the wheel, indignant and alert. “If you allow trespassers on the place, Amanda . . .”
“This woman seemed very much at home,” said I. “It did seem strange that she should make off as I approached, but I thought she must be a friend.”
“Oh,” said Amanda then, her face clearing, “I place her now. It must have been Verona Gay. Verona is in real estate, and has arranged the sale of Hieronomo House. I suppose she was checking on some detail and didn’t want to trouble us.”
“Verona,” Aunt Patience said suspiciously, “was gray when I saw her last. And if she was checking on the property, I’d like to know why she didn’t call properly at the house and ask my opinion, too. The place belongs to all of us, Amanda. Not just you. I, for one, would like to hear more about the credit standing of Verona’s buyers.”
“Tomorrow after dinner,” said Amanda soothingly, “we can discuss the matter as exhaustively as you like. Richard and Hoy can have their say, too.”
“Verona,” persisted Patience stubbornly, “was as gray as a badger a year ago.”
Amanda shifted to gaze thoughtfully at her sister’s flaming mop. “Gray hair can change its color,” she suggested.
After that Patience gave her full attention to her driving.
The village streets were thronged with holiday shoppers, and we were compelled to park some distance from the grocery store. Patience had done her bit, and obviously did not mean to pay for any groceries. She remained seated in the car, and I followed Aunt Amanda down the crowded sidewalk.
We passed the library which John S. Hieronomo had given to the village, we passed the statue of the famous abolitionist in the square, and last we passed the bank which Great-grandfather had founded but which long since had passed into other hands. The little edifice showed crisply curtained windows to the street. I wondered whether Dan Ayres was in the place at that very moment, whether he too had swallowed a hurried lunch and rushed back to his job. I kept my eyes studiously on Aunt Amanda.
The grocery store was jammed. Other women struggled for themselves and disputed the possession of the crispest lettuce, but Aunt Amanda soon obtained the full attention of a clerk. I stood by while she collected a sea of parcels. I touched her arm.
“Can’t I help at all?”
“Thanks, dear. The clerk, I’m sure, will carry out my parcels.” Suddenly she hesitated. “There is one thing. You might walk around the square to the hardware store and pick up a package. Just charge it to my account. I’ll meet you at the car.”
As I departed, I had an impression that Aunt Amanda was gazing after me with a rather indecisive expression on her face. It was the haziest of impressions, and very often afterwards was I to wonder about it.
After the uproar of the grocery store, the hardware store was such a peaceful haven that at first I thought it was deserted. I waited patiently. A sharp rap on the counter eventually produced from the dark regions toward the back a dreamy-looking clerk. He held a small package in his hand.
“I’m Anne Hieronomo,” I said. “I came to . . .”
“Here’s your parcel, Miss,” he said, and to my surprise handed over the small, square package in his hand. Aunt Amanda’s name was penciled on the wrapping.
“That will be a dollar and a quarter,” said the clerk.
Aunt Amanda had spoken of a charge account, but I meekly opened my purse and counted out the correct amount—not realizing that later on this small act was to be interpreted as significant. I fitted the parcel into my purse—it was very heavy for its size—and walked from the dusky, dusty store. I closed the door behind me. Aunt Amanda was waiting on the steps outside.
“Anne, dear!” cried she. “On second thought I decided I’d meet you here. The butcher shop is just next door and I had to get my turkey there. So here I am!”
To say that I was surprised was to put it mildly. She might as well have done her errand for herself. I handed her the small square parcel, listened to her somewhat breathless thanks, and allowed her to lead me into the adjacent butcher shop. A moment later she was demanding my opinion of an eighteen-pound turkey.
The shopping took a full two hours. When the aunts and I reached home we discovered that Hoy and Glenn Hieronomo, driving in from Boston, had preceded us by half an hour. In half an hour they had transformed Hieronomo House.
The vast funereal drawing room was actually gay. A roaring fire leaped on the hearth. Sun streamed through draperies that had not been drawn in years. Rust and yellow chrysanthemums, great nodding armloads, burst from half a dozen vases. A portable radio, placed sacrilegiously upon the grand piano, was grinding out floods of swing.
On the table before the hearth, winking in the reflected blaze of the fire, was a tall green bottle. Both men were hovered anxiously above it. Timed exactly to our entrance, a champagne cork popped into the air.
“Hoy! Glenn!” cried Patience in obvious delight. “Which of you remembered champagne was my favorite drink?”
Amanda’s greeting was more reserved. Her nephew, like my father, had grown up in Hieronomo House; she wanted him to feel at home, but she didn’t forget that, after all, she was hostess. The scene was heartening, but I suppose it wasn’t dignified. Hoy Hieronomo himself wasn’t dignified. He was short and bald and hadn’t the bearing or look of the Hieronomos, although he was plump like Patience. Where she ran to hips and bust, he ran to stomach.
He kissed the aunts soundly, kissed me, too.
“You’re Gavin’s girl! Your daddy and I used to have some great old times together . . .”
Glenn brought over the champagne glasses. The medical student was less exuberant than the father he patently adored, but I sensed that he might wear better. Glenn Hieronomo stood six feet tall, head and shoulders
over Hoy, and he wasn’t handsome in the least. His hair was carroty, rather than red, and his face was splashed with freckles. He kissed me rather shyly, a glancing kiss that missed my nose.
“Hello, cousin.” He added, sotto voce, “It’s a plot, of course—but play up. Dad has made up his mind to bring a little life into the tomb. Does it suit?”
“Decidedly,” said I.
Somehow, I remember the meeting with the Boston Hieronomos as the pleasantest thing that happened in Hieronomo House—though possibly it is because those fifteen or twenty minutes stand out so frivolous and gay in the horror that was to follow. John S. Hieronomo wasn’t mentioned, nor was the vanished glory of th
e family. Hoy Hieronomo took his pleasure strictly in the moment. He was a born host, one of those openhanded souls who seemingly exist to make a party go. Typically enough, he had brought champagne for the rest of us, while his ulcer restricted him to milk and water.
The little interlude was short enough. I hadn’t for an instant forgotten my appointment at the fence, and I became restlessly aware that time was passing. Quite unconsciously Aunt Amanda helped me out. As the foyer clock struck four, she rose to excuse herself.
“I’ll have to dress,” she said, with a rueful glance at her riding habit, “before Richard comes. He detests straight hair and women who wear pants, and makes no secret of it. Lucy’s lack of vanity has tried his soul for years.”
“They don’t arrive until half-past five,” objected Patience. “That’s an hour and a half.”
“Not a minute too long,” replied Amanda firmly, “to turn an ugly duckling into a swan for an exacting brother.” She glanced at me. “You might run up later, dear, and help button me into the first dinner dress I’ve worn in years.”
She picked up the champagne glass and left the room.
In the doorway she hesitated and looked back briefly on the family party. Afterwards, I was to be questioned exhaustively about Amanda Silver’s behavior and her manner, about whether she had seemed nervous or disturbed or in any way out of the ordinary. I was to answer that Aunt Amanda seemed neither nervous nor disturbed, but, as usual, the mistress of herself and the situation. I did fancy, however, as she hesitated in the doorway, that I surprised a curious expression on her face—an expression of marked and almost grim determination, hardly the look of a woman who intended merely to change her clothes. She may have seen me watching her. She turned abruptly, crossed the shadowy foyer and climbed the stairs.
I don’t quite recall how I disentangled myself from the group, but very shortly afterwards I speedily followed Aunt Amanda to the second floor. A tentative knock upon her door brought no immediate response. I gave up at once and started down again. It was already quarter after four.
The three still seated about the fire were visible from the stairs. From their attitudes it was evident that the fun was over. Glenn was listening restlessly while his elders talked, and I felt sure that if I were seen Aunt Patience would pounce and enter into a wordy cross-examination.
To reach the great front door, it was necessary to pass in full view of the drawing room. Off the foyer, however, was an alcove from which opened another less conspicuous door. A side door that was flanked by an old-fashioned hatstand where visitors left their wraps. Cousin Hoy and Glenn had gone there to deposit their hats and heavy coats. I brushed their garments as I departed quickly, not to say surreptitiously, by the exit on the side.
I must have reached the fence several minutes before four-thirty. Dan had been so urgent that I thought he, too, might anticipate the appointed hour. With a ridiculous leap of the heart, then, I heard a familiar scratching at the hole beneath the fence.
“Skipper!” I called cautiously.
A shaggy head appeared. An instant later the dog was capering around me. No Dan, however. I was puzzled. Skipper brought a stick, prodded me gently with a cold wet nose, sat up and begged. I obliged with several halfhearted throws, but always my eye was on the fence. Dan did not appear.
Minutes passed, and I began to grow impatient. It wasn’t possible Dan could be mistaken in the hour; he himself had set the time. I called repeatedly, got no response. I even tried to find a peephole in the fence so I could peer through to the other side. The only opening I could find was the opening Skipper had dug for himself. The matching boards were as tightly fitting, as impregnable, as a prison wall. At last I turned to the dog, who had watched my activities with bored contempt. “Go—go get Dan.”
He disappeared at once. I had about decided the dog was gone for good when triumphantly he returned and laid at my feet the red rubber ball.
It is difficult for me to explain now, just as afterwards I found it difficult to explain to the authorities, why on a chill winter twilight I would wait an hour on the rapidly dwindling chance that the appointment would be kept. It must have been that I could not conceive Dan would let me down. From one minute to the next
I expected him. From one minute to the next, now acid and now hurt, I planned and replanned what was to be my reception of his apologies and explanations.
That he wouldn’t come was incredible. I tossed the ball for Skipper, I paced up and down beside the fence, I stamped my freezing feet and clapped my hands, and always I expected Dan. And then—suddenly and sickeningly—I knew he wasn’t coming.
The light ash-gray of twilight was rapidly fading into darker hues, the winter sun had disappeared, and across the snow crept deepening shadows. Dan wasn’t coming. Skipper licked my hand and whimpered. He was shaking from exertion.
"Go home, Skipper,” I said. "Go home to your master.”
I waited until the little dog had seized his ball and vanished before I retraced my steps to Hieronomo House. And then, in the stillness of the winter twilight, I heard the shrill blast of a distant automobile horn. I didn’t pause to reflect that Dan would never publicly announce his arrival on my great-grandfather’s property, that he would never call there publicly. I rushed toward and around the house.
I stopped dead. There was no car in sight. But standing on the great verandah, framed dramatically by the mounting columns of the portico, was a tall dark man. His lean figure was wrapped in a cape of rusty black, the hand that was about to press the bell wore a soiled white glove. Richard Hieronomo was fifty-eight; I had thought of him as a perpetual thirty, but I recognized him instantly.
He certainly saw, and very probably identified me. He gave no sign of it. The outstretched hand dropped to his side, rose again in a sweeping gesture. He turned so that I caught in silhouette the flowing cape, the opera hat, the beetling brow, the jutting hawklike nose so like the nose in the portrait upstairs.
In a throbbing, vibrant voice Richard Hieronomo addressed the winter evening!
“Home, home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
No possible comment occurred to me. I coughed a little. Richard Hieronomo started violently.
“You—you’re Great-uncle Richard,” I said, and joined him on the verandah.
“Gavin’s daughter? You’re Gavin’s daughter?” He registered astonishment. Real tears came into his eyes. “The oldest and the fairest of the family meet,” cried Great-uncle Richard, “and here’s my hand on it.” With which he pressed the soiled white glove upon me, and then said in a completely changed and natural voice, “I don’t suppose, child, you could settle my taxi bill. My poor sweet wife and all our bags are held hostage on the road below. The driver couldn’t change a twenty-dollar bill.”
I shook my head, and he sadly rang the bell. The door flew open. Patience, Hoy and Glenn spilled out. In the ensuing confusion, exclamations and embraces, I managed to slip inside, and rid myself of my hat and coat. Glenn went loping down the hill and returned with a pile of battered luggage and a vague, bewildered little woman who was a perfect foil for Great-uncle Richard. Lucy Hieronomo wore a frock that her husband must have chosen—an affair of fringe and spangles—but he had neglected to comb her hair and apply her lipstick. And he had not provided her with her shrinking character. I fancy she was born apologetic.
Champagne was produced again, and even Lucy, satisfied that there was sufficient to go around, was persuaded to sip a little. Five minutes must have passed before Richard demanded:
“Where’s Amanda? Where’s my eldest sister?”
Patience, exactly like a well-fed pouter pigeon in her gray lace and satin, looked around and said, surprised, “Amanda should have finished dressing long ago.” Her eye happened to light on me. “You went up to help her dress, Anne. Wasn’t that around four o’clock?”
One of those silences fell. My voice seemed too loud, too clear. “I—I didn’
t see her, Aunt Patience.”
“You’re not dressed yourself, child!”
“No,” I said.
Patience started to pursue the topic, and then changed her mind and heaved to her feet. Great-aunt Lucy, anxious only to be of help, had contrived to dislodge her from her favorite chair.
“I’ll call Amanda, Richard.”
Richard had already strode into the foyer. He directed powerful lungs up the stairs. “Amanda, Amanda, come on down! The prodigal and his bride are here.”
It was a call that would have waked the dead, but it brought no response except that Wanda—already irritated by the need of supplying ice and glasses to the drawing room—appeared from the kitchen.
“Mrs. Silver has gone out.”
“Ridiculous!” Richard glared at the girl. “You’re mistaken, chit. My sister would not be gadding at the hour her only brother was expected. Amanda, Amanda, come on down!”
“Yell away,” said Wanda pertly. “Mrs. Silver isn’t here. I heard her leave.”
Said Patience sharply, “Amanda certainly didn’t speak of going out. She went upstairs to dress. Did you see her go?”
“I heard her,” repeated Wanda, with slightly less assurance. “I was in the kitchen, but I heard Mrs. Silver—or someone—go through the alcove, and close the door. The side door squeaks a little.” I opened my mouth, closed it. For Wanda added smoothly, “At quarter of five it was. The kitchen clock was striking. I was just putting on the ham for dinner.”
I saw Hoy look at Glenn. “It doesn’t sound like Amanda to walk off without a word.”'
“It’s something to do with the house,” said Patience suddenly. “Something’s gone wrong about the sale. I know it. I can feel it in my bones.”
That seemed far-fetched to me.
“Isn’t it possible,” I suggested, “that Eliot took Aunt Amanda on some last-minute errand?”
“Eliot,” said Wanda, “has an attack of sinus. He’s been in bed since three o’clock.”
The Balcony Page 4