Crying Child (12 page)

People talk about red-gold hair, but you don’t see that shade often, especially on an adult. It happens to be the exact shade I’ve always wanted to have. I tried on a wig of that color once; it looked so awful on me that I didn’t buy it. But I gaped in jealous admiration at the girl who came by it legitimately.

She wasn’t really pretty. Her mouth was too big and she had a copious supply of freckles. But no one would have known she wasn’t pretty. A woman would respond to the broad electric grin and the lively friendliness in her face. A man wouldn’t notice her face at all. She had a gorgeous figure. I don’t think she tried to show it off, but the tight, old pants and the man’s shirt looked sexier on her than a pair of skintight slacks would look on most women.

She wiped her hand on the seat of her jeans before she offered it to us, and waved away Mary’s attempt at introductions.

“Sure I remember you—you don’t mind if I call you Mary, do you? I’ve known Ran too long to be
formal with his wife. And this has to be your sister. That’s the curse of a small town, girls, everybody knows every blasted move you make. Your name is Jo, you’re from San Francisco, and you’re an artist.”

“Not exactly an—”

“I should have come up to visit you but I haven’t had time. Trying to get the place ready for the summer trade. It was nice of you to come and see me. You’ll have some coffee, won’t you? No, it’s no trouble, I always keep a pot on the burner.” She winked at me. “It’s good for business. Relaxes the customers and makes ’em feel as if they ought to buy something.”

“That’s a good—”

“They do it in Near Eastern bazaars all the time. I read about it in a book.” She led the way to the back of the shop, still talking. “Paper cups, but that’s just part of the informal charm. Sit down, won’t you? Wait a sec, I’ll clear off a couple of chairs.”

I caught Mary’s eye and glanced hastily away before I started laughing. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. I couldn’t visualize Will married to this cheerful chatterbox, he would never have been able to get a word in edgewise. But after seeing Sue I could believe that a man might carry a torch for a good long time.

We took the chairs she pulled up and she sat on a packing case, with her legs swinging.

“Listen, I really am glad you came by. I want to talk to you about something.”

“What is it?” Mary asked.

“Maybe I ought to talk to Ran. But to tell you the honest-to-God truth, I’m a little bit embarrassed about it.”

Again Mary and I exchanged glances. Sue caught the look and flushed.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m making it sound like some big important thing. Don’t worry, it isn’t anything like…well, like what you might be thinking. The truth is, I’ve got some things he might like to have back. You know that in the last few years the old ladies—his aunts—weren’t too well off?”

“I didn’t know that,” Mary said, looking concerned. “And I’m sure Ran didn’t either. He wouldn’t—”

“Oh, listen, honey, I know Ran, you don’t have to tell me he wouldn’t have let them starve. They weren’t that poor. But there wasn’t any extra money, and they were too darned stiff-necked to ask him for help, not after the awful way they acted when his mother got married again. I think they were ashamed.”

“But they left him the house,” I said.

“Oh, sure. He was the last male Fraser. They’d have left him the house if he’d been an ax murderer. You don’t know what family tradition is till you live in New England. That’s why Ran
has all the money; it came down in a chunk from father to son. Oh, well, what I’m trying to say is that in the last few years the old ladies sold some things. Nothing Ran would even notice was missing, out of all the stuff in that house. But there were a few things I thought you might like to have back.”

“You don’t mean,” Mary said, “that you kept the things you bought from them?”

“I had to let most of them go,” Sue said defensively. “I just didn’t have the cash—”

“My dear girl. I’m not complaining; I’m very touched at your kindness, and I know Ran will be too. He certainly wouldn’t allow you to suffer any financial loss for the sake of his family. They were his responsibility, not yours.”

“Then you’ll tell him about it?”

“Right away.”

“Oh, there’s no hurry. He may not even want the stuff, and if he doesn’t, that’s fine. But I feel better about it now.” Sue smiled. “I guess you think I’m pretty silly, making such a big thing out of it.”

“I certainly don’t think that.”

“As I said, there isn’t much left. Just a couple of things I thought—”

The shop bell jingled, and Sue looked up. A frown wrinkled her forehead.

“Oh, Gawd,” she said under her breath. “It’s
that old—Hi, there, Mrs. Cartwright! Be right with you.”

The customer was a stocky woman with a chest like a shelf.

“I am in a hurry,” she said loudly. “If you don’t mind.”

“Excuse me?” Sue said to us.

“Go right ahead.” Mary stood up. “We’ve got to run. We’re supposed to meet Ran.”

“Oh, darn. You’ll come back another time?”

“Sure. And I’ll tell Ran.”

We left Sue in the clutches of Mrs. Cartwright. As we went down the street Mary said,

“She’s cute, isn’t she?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wonder what happened between her and Will.”

“She’ll probably tell you if you know her long enough. She talks even more than I do.”

The Inn was at the other end of the street, near the wharf. As we went toward it we passed a big white house, set back from the sidewalk, which Mary pointed out as the museum.

“I suppose we don’t have time to go in,” I said, lingering.

Mary took my arm firmly.

“Not time enough for a confirmed museum hound like you. There will be other times.”

We went on by, but the sight of the place re
minded me of the enigmatic gravestone and the researches I meant to pursue. I almost said something about it to Mary. Ordinarily a mystery of that sort would have intrigued her. We would have speculated about the woman whose life had ended in such obscurity, and we would have gone through the family papers together. Mary would have loved my adventure in the graveyard; her sturdy common sense would have reduced the apparition of Annie Marks to the absurdity it was. But now…Well, I didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell me I ought to avoid morbid subjects.

Ran was waiting for us in the bar. I wasn’t too happy about that, though the drink in front of him appeared to be untouched. I didn’t know how many he had had before that one.

Naturally I didn’t ask. Ran was so pleased with Mary’s good spirits that he forgot to be self-conscious with me. It was pathetic to see how he looked at her, like a parent with a sick child, trying to keep from showing his anxiety but painfully conscious of every word and every gesture the child makes. I noticed, too, that he didn’t finish the drink in front of him, despite Mary’s teasing. She was in high spirits.

There was one little incident, just before we left. Ran was fumbling for change while the waiter stood by with the check. Mary, whose seat faced the door, gave a gasp of surprise and exclaimed,

“Who on earth is that?”

I turned.

The Inn, recently remodeled, was an attractive old place and the bar was dark-paneled and dimly lit. I couldn’t have seen clearly in any case, and the figure Mary indicated was just going out the door. I caught only a glimpse of a long dark gown and a weird old-fashioned bonnet; but the sight was enough to make me knock over the dregs of my drink.

By the time the waiter had mopped it up Ran had located his wallet and Mary repeated her question.

“Did you see her, Jo? Straight out ofThe Scarlet Letter. Who is she?”

“I’ll bet I know,” I said. “Five will get you ten. Annie Marks?”

Ran, who hadn’t seen the figure, looked baffled, but the waiter gave me a nod and a smile.

“That’s right, miss. She’s quite a picturesque character, isn’t she? The boss doesn’t like her hanging around, but she doesn’t do any harm.”

“The boss ought to pay her,” Mary said gaily. “She adds quite a touch of local color.”

I was the first one out of the bar, but I was too late. By the time I reached the street Annie Marks was nowhere in sight. I was sorry about that; I had wanted a closer look. That one unsatisfactory glance had made me uneasy. I had the impression
that Annie had shrunk considerably since I saw her in the woods that morning.

II

When we got back to the house Ran went upstairs to change. He was definitely grubby after an afternoon messing around with boats. I had entertained a half-formed notion of finding the chest Jed had mentioned, but I didn’t get a chance. Mrs. Willard was waiting for us; she shepherded me and Mary into the parlor and announced that tea was ready. I looked at Mary, who shrugged and smiled. It would have been useless to tell Mrs. Willard we had already had cocktails. When she prepared tea, people drank it.

Mary kicked off her shoes and curled up in a big chair.

“Play something,” I said, indicating the piano.

“I’m too lazy. And out of practice. You go ahead.”

I was out of practice myself. I never did play as well as Mary. But I wasn’t self-conscious about performing in front of her.

I hadn’t realized until I started to play how much I had missed making music. If I want to hear perfect Chopin, I put on a record by Rubinstein or Michelangeli. But the satisfaction I derive
from playing is only partly related to how well I play. I slashed my way through the first pages of the “Ballade in G minor,” got my fingers tangled together after the first measure of the next part, where it gets fast, and stopped on a hideous discord.

“Rubinstein would be lying on the floor crying if he could hear that,” I said, turning around toward Mary.

I might have imagined the expression on her face. For several hours I was able to convince myself that I had. She hadn’t moved from her former position, feet tucked up under her, body curved into the yielding embrace of the big chair. But now her fists were clenched on the arms of the chair and she was staring at the darkening windows with a look of intense longing. Orpheus might have looked like that as he saw his beloved drawn back down into the darkness from which he had almost won her.

“Mary,” I said sharply; and she turned a placid, smiling face toward me.

“Why don’t you try something a little simpler? ‘A Day on the Seashore,’ or ‘The Choo-Choo Train?’”

I let my breath trickle out.

“Never in my life, not even in the first month of piano lessons, did I have a piece entitled ‘The Choo-Choo Train.’”

“Really? It sounded so appropriate. I don’t care what you play, so long as you have mercy on Chopin and Beethoven. How about some popular music? You always did have a deplorable weakness for that group—what was its name—the Insects.”

“Don’t ham it up,” I said severely. “The lamas in the remotest mountains of Tibet have heard of the Beatles. And they’re classics now. You should hear The Who. Or Three Dog Night. Or—”

“You’re making those names up.”

“You really are square, aren’t you?”

“Educate me, then.”

“You can’t play rock music on a piano,” I complained, sounding a few tentative chords. “You need amplification and a strong rhythm section—”

“And a lot of tone-deaf voices howling.”

It was an old argument, dating back to my high school years. For the fun of it we both took extreme viewpoints. Mary denied that any composer after Beethoven was worth listening to, and I expressed a deep devotion to hard rock. I was pounding out a song with a title like “If You Want Me to Love You, Girl, You’d Better Give,” when a rattle of dishes made me break off.

The vigor with which Mrs. Willard placed the tea tray on the table expressed her opinion of my music without any necessity for speech; but Mrs. Willard never lost a chance of talking.

“How you can stand that stuff I do not know. Can’t hardly find anything else on the radio these days. It makes a person deaf, you know. Science says so. That’s what’s wrong with the world today. Long hair and short skirts and no morals, and that caterwauling instead of music.”

“A very succinct summation,” said Mary solemnly. “I see you brought an ally, too. Hello, Will.”

He came into the room like one of his cats encountering an unfamiliar smell—stiff, sidling, and suspicious.