Strange Yesterday (17 page)

“And the price?”

“To the sky. I represent the firms of Thatcher and Preswick, and Martin Demity Incorporated. You have heard, perhaps—”

“I certainly have,” declared the assessor warmly.

“And I have explained what I require sufficiently well? Small, for there must be few servants and no entertaining, quiet, and isolated within short carriage distance of the city.”

“I have the place in mind at this moment.”

“It is far?”

“Twenty miles or so. But lovely country.”

“Then I shall see you in the morning?”

“At ten—or eight, if you can make it.”

“At ten.”

They shook hands, and Carl Stadter went back to his hotel and his bed.

And that is how it came about that upon the very morning after, a gig drew up before the hedge that surrounded the Steer's Horn, and two men stepped down, opened the gate, and walked into a quiet, flagstoned garden, where there was no other sound than the heavy, comfortable humming of insects. One of the men, the shorter, and with a distinct air of the legal profession about him, seated himself at a table, while the other went to the door, thrust in his head, and bawled loudly for John Preswick. As he waited, the one at the table glanced about him, attempting to conceal his pleasure with everything that met his eyes. Over to his left was a hill, the only one, a strangely shaped hummock of earth and rock that might be likened, if one had a turn for the fantastic, to a steer's head. And at his back, the broad hedge, crawling almost to the foot of the hill. With approval he noticed the judgment used in apportioning the shade trees, and how large they were, and how aged, and how green, and how very restful. The grounds were not flat, but rose and fell as the sea does when there is no wind; and some were hedged into fields, and others were fenced, and one, bordering upon the road-hedge, was walled in low, concreted stone in a broad semicircle. And all of it was done in what might be termed a gentle manner, as though even the inanimate were wary of breaking with any sudden rudeness into the peace that hung about the place. The house was of red brick, of a style which he had seen frequently further north, in Virginia and Maryland, and less frequently in New York, but which was fast becoming obsolete, solid, shaped like an overbalanced H, the entrance between short forward wings. Over the portico there was a small cupola railed in white. Three stone steps led down to the flagstones with which the garden was set, and all about the stone base of the house, vines grew, picking a slow, aimless way upward, to finish in a snake-like struggle about the four chimneys. The house was not large; but it was—Lawyer Stadter thought for a moment—it was much a gentleman.

Strange, but the house impressed him as an animate being.

And the windows were white, and the shutters were green, and the curtains were blue and frosty. Certainly, it should not have been an inn; and the sign with the two curling steer's horns upon it was outrageously incongruous.

In the garden where he sat there was a bed of large, pink blooms, whose name he did not know, but which gave off a fascinating, minty odor of drowsiness that combined itself expertly with the humming of insects and the earth scent, to drug his mind and tell him that here, in this place, nothing was quite worth while—except to simply be here. He was not a young man, Lawyer Stadter, and now he felt that he had labored too often and too long. He liked the way he could lean back and fasten his eyes upon the green slope, brush-covered, of the Steer's Head. On the very top of the hill there was a small oak standing up impudently.

He liked the table itself: a single, hewed board, worm-eaten, and beaten by wind and rain, dried by the sun.

He liked the powerful heat of the sun, since here it was perfectly obvious that the sun must be a part of the rest.

He felt just a little envious of Martin Demity, who would leave the bustling rush of New York for this, who would come here with his young wife—who would surely recover here if anywhere—and who would be able to live out his years in this place.

For Lawyer Stadter had already determined that he would buy it, even if he had to forfeit as many thousands of dollars as there were flagstones beneath his feet.

Almost was he regretful when the assessor returned with a tall, well-built young man, keen blue-gray eyes looking out of a brown face, topped by a lighter brown thatch of hair, whom he introduced to him as John Preswick, owner of the Steer's Horn.

“Yes,” said John Preswick, his voice a soft drawl, “I am glad to meet you. I should not be surprised if we both parted happier men.”

Then Lawyer Stadter awoke. He made an attempt to shake off the spell of the garden, and he became a business man, brisk and alert and awake to all possibilities. But that was by no means an easy poise to acquire, for the insects still hummed, and the scent of the pink pastel blooms still wavered in the air. He said, Lawyer Stadter:

“I suppose you know that I come to buy. I like what I have seen; the interior of the house remains to be considered. An inn, you must remember, is very, very far from a private residence.”

Smiling, John Preswick replied: “We are hardly an inn. This road was never thick with traffic, and of late, the little we used to have has fallen off completely. The new bridge accounts for that. As for the house, if you will except the kitchen, which is overlarge, perhaps, it is much the same as it was before it became a hostelry, or so I have heard, for it has been in our family many years. However, you are entirely welcome to examine it. I realize that for you the furnishings will be hopelessly out of date. But first you must see it for yourself.”

“And the lands?”

“Forty acres, including that hill, the pastures, and the bit of wood to the back. Roughly, it lies between here, the hill, and the road, and in the other direction, the wood.”

Lawyer Stadter said: “And now, if I may see the house?”

Through the kitchen they went, past a tremendous hearth, and up a small hardwood staircase to the left wing. One by One they passed through the rooms, all of them large, three in one wing, two in the other, and two in the center; and then they descended to the drawing-room and dining-hall, the latter small, but paneled in black hardwood, and rather splendid. The passage was brief; in hardly more than minutes they had taken it all in, and they were back in the shade of the portico. To himself, Lawyer Stadter nodded; he was pleased, very pleased. The house had hardly been spoilt by the sign that stood out over the hedge.

They went through the fields. There had been some cotton, but those fields were worked out and now lay fallow. Between the hedge and the stone wall there was hay. In the orchard there were peaches and apples. A part of the land was wooded with new growth, and a smaller part with heavy first timber.

Not all was level, however, for the fields dipped, turned, and bent, and the stone fences tumbled after each other, like miniature walls of China, giving an impression of more size than there actually was. Doing his best to preserve his staid exterior, Lawyer Stadter followed after—in reality he would have preferred to dance or to throw himself full length on the grass and forget all about money and various clients. But the place would never be his for himself, do what he might; that, he realized, and for some reason not at all clear, he felt the whole thing palling.

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last he suggested that they return to the garden to talk the matter over, making, without being aware, a very definite mistake, for the garden was weighted with lethal fragrance, which was beyond his poor powers to resist.

About the table they sat, the three of them: the assessor, the innkeeper, whose name was John Preswick, and Lawyer Carl Stadter, who was representing his client in New York; and they paused for a moment in silence, breathing the scent of the pink blooms. “Any moment now,” Lawyer Stadter thought to himself, “I shall remember the name of those flowers. Anyway, I shall inquire whether they can be grown in New York.” But definitely, there was no place in New York for such flowers.

“Your name is John Preswick?” the lawyer ventured.

“John Preswick,” the innkeeper agreed, his keen eyes twinkling slightly, for he understood, in some measure, just what effect this garden was having upon the lawyer from New York.

“Strange,” mused Carl Stadter, “but that is the name of my client's mother, or was, I should say, since she is dead. The mother, I mean. Preswick. It became Thatcher when she married. But that is neither here nor there. My good friend tells me that this place is for sale, and you seem anxious to have it off your hands, which is not surprising, for you are a young man, and youth usually resents being tied down. Now I have a peculiar need to fill. My client is a woman of failing health, and the only diagnosis her physician will suggest—mind you, I do not agree with him, but he is her physician—is a change to a milder climate. To be perfectly frank, it will not cure her, though it may prolong the life remaining her. So it is to my and her interest that the place I choose shall be—well suitable in the atmosphere it will present. Now your inn answers well enough. Is it unencumbered?”

“Absolutely.”

“No mortgage?”

“None.”

“That is rather strange.”

“It was my mother's way of conducting her business. Personally, I think it was a good way.”

“Yes—yes, indeed. You are the sole owner?”

“Since my mother died.”

“Very well. Now, what will you sell for?”

“Thirty-five thousand dollars—cash.”

The lawyer started back, hardly believing his senses, wondering whether it was too much of the garden and the sun. And as he looked to the assessor, he found his surprise registered there in brief likeness. Then he smiled, that he might share the jest with John Preswick, for it had come to him that, in spite of what the assessor had asserted, the place was worth all of that. But the assessor had assured him he could get it for half, and he was not the man to give in easily. He said, Lawyer Stadter:

“I am willing to reach the top price. Let us say—fourteen thousand?”

John Preswick stood up. “You have heard me,” he said shortly. “The price is thirty-five thousand dollars, and there it stands. Take it—or go!” There was a twang to his tongue that seemed to the lawyer startlingly familiar. At least he had never before encountered it in an innkeeper.

Turning to the assessor, Stadter said: “But it is assessed at only fifteen thousand. Isn't that correct? And now values are dropping to rock bottom. Come, man, you are mad to talk in such a fashion!”

“You must be reasonable, Preswick,” the assessor put in.

“You are not forced to buy,” John Preswick said indifferently, but in the manner of ending a conversation.

Lawyer Stadter glanced about him. Just by stretching forth a toe he could touch the pink blooms, the scent of which clung to his head, whispering with a voice totally unfamiliar to him, but charming, nevertheless. The grass was high, coming up between the flagstones and in the border where the flagstones ended; it was thick, luxuriant grass; and there was a short, bubble-shaped tree, nodding with white blooms; and there was a bottle of wine on the table, open, and giving off odor where no odor at all was required—there were already so many mingling! It was hostile, all of this, to clear thought. But it said to Lawyer Stadter that here, in this place, clear thought had no business to be, and that the innkeeper, after all, was merely an oaf, or else he would not consider selling this property, unencumbered as it was. And that if once Inez or Martin Demity could lay eyes upon it, they would never hesitate, and that he could not deprive Inez Demity of the pleasure of sitting in this same garden. But, that being what it was, thirty-five thousand dollars was something he could not go.

“I'll give you sixteen,” he stated in his crispest manner.

“I hardly think I am your man,” John Preswick smiled.

“You can't hold me up—like a common thief!” Lawyer Stadter exploded, making a gallant attempt to shake off the garden.

“I am not trying to,” John Preswick replied dryly, overlooking the heat of the man's words. “I am not even asking you—much less forcing you—to buy.”

“Damn it!” snapped Lawyer Stadter. “Twenty thousand then, and I shan't go a cent higher! Already you have twice what the place is worth!”

It was the garden—the garden—the garden—

When Lawyer Stadter put his signature to the papers, approving the payment of. thirty-five thousand dollars cash for what was, at the most, property worth half of that, he was no more Lawyer Stadter than John Preswick was. It was the garden—if he had only known. But, inwardly, he insisted that the inn and the land were worth all and more than the thirty-five thousand, as perhaps they were. There was the garden. Only when they were returning to Charleston to get the money did he admit to himself that he was and had been a merciless fool; but he was secure in the belief that the garden would play upon the Demitys as it had upon him. Much he staked upon the garden, and much upon the little house itself. But in spite of all that, he could not help realizing that he had been a fool. Thatcher had an account in Charleston, and he cashed a check for the sum, handing the package of crisp notes over to John Preswick, who thanked him gracefully, bidding him a fond and smiling good-by.

Each went to their lodgings, but in opposite directions, for John Preswick was discreet and economical in his taste. As he walked away, John Preswick was rather proud of himself, for he felt that he had been the artist, and yet not the artist. Where an artist would have recognized the tactical value of the garden, he would not have parted with it, even for thirty-five thousand dollars. Feeling something of gratefulness to a father he did not remember, he crinkled the notes. A call was coming from somewhere, a soft, laughing call, and he lifted his head to listen to it.

An attractive and a strong head he lifted, if not a handsome one; his eyes were deep and biting, sunk in the dark cavities of his cheeks and gleaming from the recesses, gray flickering into blue to give the impression of green, like the gray-green of the skies when storm clouds drift over from the horizon. His face was flesh-less, but large of bone, the brown skin stretched over prominent cheekbones and a high, rolling brow to sand-colored, thinnish hair. And his long frame beneath was so bony and fleshless as to suggest a skeleton clothed; when he walked, he shambled his length.