Lady (25 page)

Lady was not inclined. She did not fancy being referred to as a winter bride, nor was she receptive to the remarks about Edward's things.

"The chifforobe will remain as it is," she had declared coldly, her face turning white, her eyes tossing sparks. As on the occasion with Mr. Sprague and the dog, her anger could be awe-inspiring, and so it proved this day. Stay the chifforobe did, contents and all, though the shrine on the gate-leg table, having been put away, did not reappear, and in its place Lady set out framed pictures of each of us, "her family."

The actual reason for what may have been troubling Lady during these weeks seemed to me, possessed of private knowledge, quite clear. Since the flood, the Green had dried up again, and all had resumed its natural appearance, except for one curious instance which occurred early that summer. Water began continually seeping up through the turf close to the roadway just opposite her front door. This soggy phenomenon became the cause of conjecture, and when the WPA engineers arrived to survey the situation it was thought that something was amiss with the new sewer line. They decided to dig up the spot and discover the trouble, and as the re-excavation commenced, and we stopped over to observe its progress, we could see Lady in her window, watching with concern.

It was the
corpus delicti
, of course, that was causing her alarm. I felt more certain than ever that Mr. Ott had not left the house on that fatal night, but that Jesse had somehow managed to sequester the body in the open sewer excavation, and had shoveled in enough earth to bury it before the job had been completed. But by the end of the week, when fifteen feet of the line had been dug up, nothing untoward was found, other than that the pipes had been laid on an upgrade, a fact Porter Sprague and his clique of Roosevelt-haters made capital of: the WPA couldn't even lay a sewer properly. The mistake rectified, the excavation was refilled, the turf tamped down in squares, and the workmen retired from the scene. Lady evinced visible relief at this, while I, ever the detective, racked my brain. If the
corpus delicti
was not in the coal bin, not in an attic trunk, and to all appearances not in the sewer line, what had become of it?

Some weeks later, Ruthie Sparrow was pleased to discover that her helpful hints had not been totally wasted, for Lady announced that she was going away. An elderly German couple named Hoffman, friends of her father's, who lived in Garden City, Long Island, were traveling to Europe, and Lady was driving down to New York to see them off on the
Queen Mary
. She would also visit her old friend Mrs. Hooper, the woman who had given us Patsy, and afterward she planned to go on to Virginia Beach for a short stay. Elthea and Jesse would accompany her. On a Friday afternoon the house was closed, the keys and Honey given into our safekeeping, and off they went in the new Packard Lady had bought that spring.

Alas for the Minerva landaulet; it seemed to us the end of an era.

Before leaving, Lady had loaned Ag her newly purchased copy of
Gone With the Wind
, and our romantic sister holed up in her room with the book, playing Tchaikovsky on the record player. We hardly saw her for the better part of four days. I, for one, couldn't understand all the fuss about this "O'Hara" person and someone called "Red" Butler, but when Ag turned the last page she emerged in delirium, declaring tearfully that Scarlett just had to get Rhett back. Next day she went out and fell in love with the third-oldest son of the vegetable man.

Unhappily, the romance did not proceed well. It was first stormy, then flaccid, then it petered away to nothing. The vegetable man's son did not want our sister, so poor Ag, drippy, dreamy, and all forlorn, shut herself up again and reread
Gone With the Wind
, for another four days while the house echoed with the
Pathetique
.

Soon after, we made an excursion with Nancy, one that was to have far-reaching consequences. A small fair was to be held at Meadowland, and Ma gave Nancy the Saturday off so she might visit her friends at the correctional school in Middlehaven. Between them they coaxed Ag to go along, and though I didn't want to, I ended up on the trip as well. Since both Lew and Harry had been invited to watch the National Guard drill team practice at the armory, and I was unable to tag along, Nancy included me in her junket, a prospect which did little to cheer me.

Miss Beale, the social worker who made trimonthly visits to the houses around town where the various hired girls were employed, came in a jitney with a driver to pick up the girls, and Ag and I were loaded aboard. I was feeling plain mean, my mood aggravated by my being the only male, but there was so much joking and laughter among the riders that my cloud of discontent gradually dispersed, and Ag, in spite of herself, was soon laughing along with the rest.

It wasn't much of a fair, the merest of makeshift booths set up on the grounds, displaying handicrafts and hobby trifles made by the women. Though I looked for bars at the windows of the various buildings, I saw none. Meadowland was nothing like my idea of a reformatory, but more like a college campus,.with its white-trimmed brick dormitories, its broad lawns and neat landscaping where visitors casually strolled among the flowered borders.

Nancy led us from booth to booth, renewing old acquaintances with girls she had known when she'd stayed there, and telling them how things were in Pequot, pridefully producing us from behind her skirts as specimens of her new status. Ag, shy as always, was not very talkative, and presently she drifted off and sat under a tree by herself; but I, having shaken off my earlier sullenness, found myself the center of considerable attention, and boldly engaged the girls in talk, dragging out my repertory of schoolboy jokes, accepting a piece of bubble gum from one, a taffy apple from another, popcorn from a third.

I saw a car pull up the drive, and Mrs. Sheffield, the supervisor, and Miss Beale went to meet it. Mrs. Sheffield was an imposing woman whose geniality belied the importance of her position. She was all smiles as she greeted the new arrivals: Porter and Mrs. de Sales-Sprague. We had heard that, as one of Pequot's selectmen, Mr. Sprague was representing the town at the proceedings. He fell quickly to striding about in his cocky way, inspecting the girls as if they were army privates and he a general on parade, while Mrs. Sprague scanned the scene and plied Mrs. Sheffield with questions regarding the "welfare of the inmates." Terminating her interview, she mingled with the girls, and put on her dreadful smile as she fingered braided place mats and poked at crocheted doilies with fanatical interest.

Nancy said we'd be eating soon, and not to go far. I sat down on some steps, where the American flag hung limply on a flagpole, watching Ag, who was still under the tree, poring over a book of poems Lady had given her. I felt sorry for her, she was so unhappy. There she sat in her freshly ironed dress, a dreamy schoolgirl mooning over the vegetable man's son, but I thought how pretty she was, how she was losing that gangly, all-legs-and-arms look. She'd put some curl in her hair and tied it back with a pale blue ribbon, and it shone from the nightly brushings she'd been giving it under Lady's instruction. Her chest was getting bumps, her complexion had cleared up, and her cheeks, which had always been red, were a new, peachy kind of color. She was like a summer flower about to bloom.

Then, in the background, Rabbit and Dora Hornaday appeared. Nancy had said they'd be there to visit with their mother, but just now they were alone, and each stayed separate from the other as if they were embarrassed by one another's company, Rabbit staring up at some birds on a wire, while Dora looked both blank and disconsolate, and tugged at the end of the bow her aunt had stuck in her hair.

A bell sounded, and Mrs. Sheffield came along with the Spragues, calling for everyone to go to the dining hall for lunch. Spying Dora, Spouse tittered to her hostess and hurried across the grass, arms outstretched.

"Why, here's little Dora Homaday. Now, now, now, Dora, mustn't pull our pretty bow." She made an elaborate to-do of relying the ribbon, while P.J. stopped with Mrs. Sheffield on the walk. I could tell it was all for her benefit, one of Spouse's I-love-kiddies acts. "Isn't it a lovely fair, Dora? What have we been doing today?" Dora's thumb swooped into her mouth, sparing her the necessity of talk, but Mrs. Sprague was having none of that. Unsticking the thumb, she reiterated her question. "Dora, tell Mrs. Sprague what you've been doing today. At the fair?" Bending, she made a large lap, and drew the protesting Dora onto it. I hoped that maybe Dora had a rock handy, but she submitted with her usual scowl, ignoring the fuss being made over her.

Mrs. Sprague dug in her pocketbook and produced a Reed's paloop and wafted it under Dora's nose. When Dora grabbed at it, she held it beyond arm's reach. "No, dear, you may have the lollipop when you have spoken nicely to Mrs. Sprague. Now what have we done today?"

Dora scrunched her eyes, and then blurted out one expanding stream of words, retailing every last item of possible interest since she had left home for Meadowland, speaking so fast that Mrs. Sprague's brows shot up above her glasses as she took it in. Then Dora was set back on her feet, and Mrs. Sprague rose and marched off with her husband, promising that Dora might have the Reed's paloop after lunch. Mrs. Sheffield called to Dora and Rabbit Hornaday, and they went off toward the dining hall. When Nancy found me and Ag, I asked where Mrs. Hornaday was.

"Her name's not Hornaday, honey. Her name's Zelinski. Kids took that aunt's name.
She's
a Hornaday."

"Why'd they do that?"

"Maybe she don't want folks to know they're Polacks."

We went to the dining hall, where Ag and I got in line with the girls. There was meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and eggplant and coleslaw. I ate the meat loaf and potatoes and coleslaw readily enough, but we'd never had eggplant at home, and I found it very foreign. Seeing my untouched portion, Ag gave me a look, and while no one was looking she switched plates with me.

Our table was served by one of the women, who had already eaten, and when we had finished, she began clearing the things onto a tray, which she carried toward a service door. She held the tray on the flat of one hand, and had reached with the other to push the door, when it sprang open in her face. She stepped back quickly, the tray slipped to the floor, and silver clattered and glass and china crashed. Through the door backed a chef in a tall white hat and an apron, while behind him came a kitchen worker. She seemed the most woebegone creature imaginable; her green uniform was wrinkled and stained, the white collar limp. Her face was blotched red from her labors in the kitchen, and in her hand she held a saucepan, which she wielded threateningly at the chef.

It was a chaotic scene: the girl who'd dropped the tray cried in dismay as she bent to pick up the scattered things, the chef and the other woman loudly confronted one another at the open door, and the other kitchen helpers crowded around to watch.

"You think you're God Almighty in there, don't you!" the young woman railed, while the chef turned with outspread hands to face the hall in frustrated appeal. "Whatsa to be done with her -- she's a era-zee!" His further remonstrance was silenced as Mrs. Sheffield, who had risen from her place at the staff table, marched down the aisle, clapping her hands for silence.

"Go back to the kitchen," she ordered the chef, then turned to the woman. "Helen, go to your room."

The poor thing started to protest angrily; then her face flushed even more and she looked about uncertainly.

"At once, Helen." Mrs. Sheffield's voice rang through the hall with formal authority. With a despairing gesture, the chef retreated into the kitchen, while Helen fled to the corner, barricading herself behind a chair, saucepan at the ready.

"Helen, give me the pan." Mrs. Sheffield's voice was firm but calm. I felt sorry for the woman; her face was pinched with emotion and she needed to blow her nose. She looked both pathetic and vulnerable, yet her expression was defiant as she cowered behind the chair in fear and embarrassment. Still she would not surrender the saucepan.

"Very well, Helen." Mrs. Sheffield turned with a resigned air to Miss Beale, who rang a small bell at the table. The doors at the far end of the hall bulged inward, revealing a large female officer in a gray uniform and badge.

"Mama!"

Dora Hornaday's voice cried out as she stood. I realized that the woman with the saucepan must be her mother, Mrs. Zelinski. Rabbit scraped his chair back and stood beside her, watching the matron advance. Her grim expression read trouble as she came with a menacing scowl toward Helen's corner. Rabbit's napkin was tied around his neck, and he blinked behind his glasses, his mouth opening and closing several times, but no words came. Then I realized he was wetting his pants: a dark stain spread down the front of his shorts and a puddle grew on the floor beside his chair. He seemed unaware of what he was doing as the matron continued purposefully down the aisle.

"All right, dearie, no nonsense, now." About to step around our table, the matron found her way blocked by a chair. Ag darted forward, with a glance to Mrs. Sheffield, then hurried to Helen, who lofted the pan as she approached. The matron halted at Mrs. Sheffield's signal, and Ag began speaking to Helen.

"Mrs. Zelinski, my name is Agnes Woodhouse. That's my brother, Woody, and that's Nancy -- she works for us. We're all friends of Rab -- Harold's. And Dora's, too. Last summer Harold went camping with my brothers. And Dora comes around to play sometimes. And Harold and Dora came today to see you. They've been waiting for you to get off work."

Helen Zelinski had lowered the saucepan and was listening with bewildered interest. There was not a murmur in the room. Neither the matron nor Mrs. Sheffield had made a move since Ag started talking.

"Maybe," she continued, " -- well, if you put down the pan, maybe you could get to see them. I know they'd like that. I'm sure they've been looking forward . . ."

I couldn't believe it. There Ag stood, before the whole hall, talking in that sweet, quiet voice of hers, as if she were in Sunday school, the focus of everyone's eyes, and she wasn't even blushing. Boy, Ag, I thought, do I love
you
!