Miss Julia Paints the Town (9 page)

After several hours of listening to the myriad reasons that Mildred had for complaint, I was more than ready for bed. Lillian had kept herself busy in the kitchen, which Mildred entirely approved of and I envied.

“We need to get to bed,” I finally said, interrupting the tenth telling of all that had gone wrong in Mildred's life. “Where do you want us to sleep?”

“I'm putting you in Horace's room,” Mildred said with a tired wave toward upstairs. “Ida Lee had already freshened it, since we were expecting him back any minute.” She had to stop to dab her eyes. “And, since Tonya was in such a hurry to leave, she didn't get around to preparing the guest rooms. She said just to put Lillian in her room. I told her that Lillian would be more comfortable in Ida Lee's room over the garage, and that it would be more appropriate, too, but she insisted that both of you be in the house.”

I bit my tongue so I wouldn't say anything, but with no thought whatsoever she had offended me and insulted Lillian, who was there out of the goodness of her heart.

“How is Ida Lee anyway?” I asked, a little more sharply than I usually spoke.

“Ida Lee,” Mildred said with a great sigh. “She's never been sick a day in her life, and wouldn't you know she'd fall ill when I need her most. It is so inconvenient to have her in the hospital at a time like this.”

“But how is she, Mildred?”

“She'll be all right, I'm sure. Tonya visited her this afternoon and checked with the doctor, and he says he thinks she's run down and working too hard. Can you believe that?”

Well, yes, I could, but I said, “I think you should go see her tomorrow. I'll drive you to the hospital.”

“Oh, I just couldn't, not tomorrow anyway. I need to be here in case there's any news from Horace. And, Julia, you know I'm not well.
My
doctor says I have to preserve my strength.” Mildred sighed again. “I'll call her tomorrow. I think there's a phone in her room.”

I didn't respond, just got up and went toward the kitchen, my insides roiling around and my mind disturbed.

“Lillian,” I said, pushing through the door, “I know I don't tell you often enough, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you.”

“Well, I 'preciate you, too, but what brought that on?”

“Oh, you know, just…well, to tell the truth, Mildred's about to drive me crazy, and I'm ready to get this night over with. And I've made up my mind, we're both going home in the morning. She can just fend for herself tomorrow.”

Just then we heard Mildred's voice calling my name from the distant living room, and on top of that, a buzzer sounded on a panel in the kitchen.

“Is that the do'bell?” Lillian asked, as she began to rise from a kitchen chair.

I studied the panel as the buzzer sounded again. “Sit still, Lillian. That's not the doorbell. It's Mildred buzzing us from the living room.” I propped my hands on my hips. “If that's not the most demeaning thing I've ever heard of. The idea, buzzing us like we're the hired help.”

“I go see what she want,” Lillian said, starting around the counter.

“No, you won't. Whatever she wants, she can get it herself. We're not here to wait on her, hand and foot. Just ignore that racket,” I said, as the buzzer went off again. “If you'll check the doors back here and turn off the lights, we'll go on upstairs.”

I lingered in the kitchen much longer than I'd intended, simply because I refused to be summoned like a handmaiden. Finally, though, we could delay no longer and Lillian and I walked through the back hall and into the foyer where we met Mildred.

“Oh, Julia,” she said, “I thought you had left me. Didn't you hear my page?”

“Who couldn't? Now, Mildred, we have to get one thing straight: Don't be buzzing me with that thing again. Or Lillian, either.”

“Well, I got lonely,” she said, looking forlorn. “You were gone too long.”

“I'm going to be gone longer than that if I hear that thing again. Now, we've checked the doors, so let's go on up. Lillian, do you mind getting the lights in the living room? Come on, Mildred, you need to be in bed, and I certainly do.”

I almost didn't make it, for Mildred began whining again about Horace and Tonya being gone and how abandoned she felt and how she'd never get to sleep with all the troubles on her mind.

“Take something,” I said, nearing my fill of hearing her complaints. “Didn't the doctor leave you a sedative?”

“Oh, I hate taking those things. They make me feel so woozy. Just sit with me a little while, Julia, till I fall asleep.”

“I'm not about to,” I said, trying to say it lightly but firmly. “Lillian and I both are whipped. We've all had a long day and need our rest. I believe this is your room, Lillian. Sleep well, and you, too, Mildred. See you in the morning.”

And I went to the room in the far corner that Mildred had pointed out and closed the door behind me. If she couldn't sleep, she could read a book, because I hadn't signed on to entertain her all night long.

I turned on a lamp and looked around with a twinge of uneasiness at invading Horace's private space. I would've preferred one of the guest rooms, even if I'd had to put sheets on the bed myself. Still, a bed was a bed, and I was ready for this one, even as it occurred to me how far Horace's room was from Mildred's. Her room was in the opposite corner at the head of the stairs, so if Horace ever wanted to visit her he had a long trek to make across the landing.

I couldn't help but wonder how often he made it.

I'll say this for her, though, Mildred, or probably Ida Lee, knew how to make guests feel not only comfortable, but pampered. The room, which overlooked the back garden, was elegantly furnished with a huge canopied bed, draped with beige and brown silk side panels, gilt-framed oil paintings of sleek thoroughbreds on the walls, and mahogany dressers, including a tall, masculine chest-on-chest. Books that I assumed Horace had been reading were on the bedside table and a one-size-fits-all robe on the suede-covered chaise longue. The adjoining bath was equally well appointed with thick towels, Crabtree & Evelyn soaps and shampoo and a Rigaud candle that I didn't dare light.

After undressing for the night, I found myself tempted to rummage through a few drawers and cubbyholes, just to satisfy my curiosity about the kind of man Horace was. But I had too much integrity to engage in snooping. Besides, the room hardly seemed lived in. A swift glance around revealed nothing of a personal nature and I was too sleepy to dig further into such matters.

After raising the back window a couple of inches, I headed for the bed. As tired as I was, it was a sensuous pleasure to crawl into it, pull up the comforter and sink toward sleep. Before I sank too far, though, I had a brief spell of worrying about Lillian, hoping that her room had been as well prepared as mine. I should've checked on it, but it was too late and I was too close to sleep.

The telephone suddenly shrilled beside my head, and I sprang up hardly knowing where I was. Scrambling for it in the dark, I finally found it, my heart racing in fear. Who would call at this time of night? Had they found Horace? Was something wrong at home?

“Julia?” Mildred said, pitifully. “I can't get to sleep.”

I was so outraged I could hardly respond, but clearing my throat, I managed to say, “Well, I can, or at least, I did. So what do you want me to do?”

“Could you come sit with me a while? Just till I drop off?”

I wanted to slam the phone down and pull the covers over my head. But I didn't; instead with a great sigh I said, “All right, but just for a little while.”

Mumbling to myself, I fumbled in the dark for the robe and wrapped it around myself. Then I stumbled out into the hall where a wall sconce had been left on, giving enough light to get me across the landing to Mildred's door.

Her room was brightly lit, a state of affairs patently unconducive to sleep. No wonder she was sitting up in bed, wide awake and disturbing other people.

“Come sit by me, Julia,” she said. “I'm so sorry to bother you, but every time I close my eyes I begin to imagine what Horace must be suffering. Or even worse, may not be suffering at all.” She began crying again, and I had a twinge of pity, thinking of how I would feel if I didn't know where Sam was—which had better be right where I'd left him.

“Now, Mildred,” I started as I went around the room clicking off lamps, “you have to turn your mind off. You need to sleep, if for no other reason than to be prepared for whatever tomorrow might bring.”

“I know,” she said, sniffing bravely. “And I'll try.”

Leaving one lamp on, I drew up a chair beside her bed. Sinking down in it, it was all I could do not to put my head back and drop off to sleep. The silence in the room lengthened, broken only by the rustle of bed linens as Mildred adjusted herself. My eyelids began to droop and my head started to nod. Any minute now, I would tiptoe out and regain the bed I'd left.

“Julia, did I ever tell you how I met Horace?”

I stirred and sighed. “No, but…”

“Well, it was the year I came out, and he danced with me at the Governor's Ball in Raleigh. He wasn't my escort, but he was doing the correct thing by dancing with all the debs. We didn't know at the time what was in store for us. Oh, I tell you, that was a wonderful year. So many young men, so many parties and receptions and balls. And clothes, oh, my word, I had the most gorgeous gowns. All bought in New York, of course. Mother was sure I would be engaged by the end of the year, but it didn't happen.” Mildred sighed and turned her head back and forth on the pillow. “She was so disappointed, and I felt I'd let her down. But I had callers, plenty of them, too, and not just during my year. They continued to come, but you know, the same ones didn't keep coming back.”

“Uh-huh,” I managed to say, hoping she'd run down and off.

“But there were one or two, well, one especially. Such a nice young man, well mannered but not very well off, whom Mother seemed to approve of. But he wasn't the only one. I was quite popular, you know. Several went so far as to speak to Father in his study, but then, they all just tapered off.”

I didn't respond, since Mildred seemed to be lost in memories of her salad days.

“Well,” she said with renewed vigor, “the years passed along, and I was well into my twenties when Father called me into his study. You remember, don't you, Julia, how women weren't expected to know anything about money? And I certainly didn't, nor did Mother. Well, Father was old and frail by that time, and he sat me down day after day and made sure I understood what was what. As I was the only child, I needed to understand my responsibilities. And he told me how protective he'd been of me, fearful, he said, of gold diggers. Well, as it turned out, what he had done was to tell any young man who expressed interest that all my inheritance would be in trusts, locked up tight with no possibility of anyone getting their hands on it. Wasn't that foresighted of him? Because it wasn't true at all, but it was his way of weeding out the fortune-hunters. Which, obviously, they all were since none of them stayed around.”

She sighed heavily, then said, “I've always been grateful to him. But, anyway, Horace came back into my life a year or so after Father died, but I was well prepared by then. I knew what he wanted, but I also knew what I wanted and, with the warnings and instructions left by Father, we negotiated our marriage. And it's worked so well, right up to this point.”

I heard her sniff again, then turn over in bed. “He took such good care of me.” Mildred's voice began to fade away, then she mumbled, “Daddy, I mean, not Horace. But Horace, too, because he had to…” She hiccupped, then let out a soft snore.

I waited, trying to keep my head up, hoping that I'd heard the end of the reminiscences.

Several minutes passed with no word from her, so I began to ease out of the chair. Carefully walking across the thick carpet, I got to the door and looked back. Mildred's mouth was open and she was deep in sleep. Making no sound, I gratefully left the room, closed the door behind me and, in the dim light of the sconce, started across the Oriental rug in the hall. To my left, over the railing of the landing, there was the dark void of the foyer. I paused, suddenly aware of the stillness of the great house and of the fact that I was the only one awake in it. Then I picked up my pace and scurried to the safety of Horace's room in the far corner of the hall.

Without turning on a light, I made a beeline for the bed, wanting only to crawl into it and rest my weary head. But as I pulled back the covers and untied my robe, I stiffened and stopped. Something was scraping against the side of the house. Turning carefully toward the open window and listening intently, I heard it again. Dismissing it, though, as the wind blowing the branches of a tree against the side of the house, I began to shrug out of my robe.

Then with a thud of my heart, I stopped in mid-shrug. There
was
no tree near the house.

Petrified, I stood in the dark room, not knowing whether to run or scream my head off. With a shaking hand, I reached for the telephone, then drew back. If I could hear what was outside, then what was outside could hear what I was doing inside. Maybe it was nothing. A cat, maybe, or a stray dog digging in the boxwoods around the foundation.

Carefully, without a sound, I eased down on the bed and waited. Sleep was far from my mind by this time. Straining to hear and identify the noise, I shivered and stared at the window, trying to get up the nerve to run over and close it.

Lord! I jumped a mile as something thudded against the wall. Then I heard a scratching sound right below the window. I came off the bed in a flash. Somebody or some
thing
was trying to get in.

Flying out into the hall, I ran straight to Lillian's room. Stumbling inside, I crashed against the bed. Shaking her, I whispered hoarsely, “Lillian! Lillian, wake up!”

“What?” She flipped over, stared blearily at the ceiling, then sat up with a start. “Miz Allen?”

“No, it's me. Get up, hurry. Somebody's trying to break in!”

“Oh, Jesus!” she whispered. “What we gon' do?”

“We'll call the police from Mildred's room. Come on and don't make any noise.”

Grabbing her hand, I led her out into the hall. Looking back at the dark room I'd just left, I scurried toward Mildred's room, dragging Lillian with me.

As we entered, I said, “Close the door, Lillian, and stand against it.” Hurrying to the bed, I hissed, “Mildred! Mildred, wake up!” I shook her until she rose up in fright, her eyes wide and still red-rimmed.

“Horace? Is he back?”

“I don't know who it is, but get up. Somebody's trying to break in. Where's the phone?”

She flung back the covers and swung herself out of bed, nearly knocking me over in the process. “A portable's on the table. It may not be charged, but we don't need it.”

“We have to call 911,” I said, rummaging over and around the magazines, tissues, handkerchiefs and empty glasses on the bedside table. My hands were shaking so badly, I hardly knew what I was doing. “Lord, where is the thing?”

Lillian, still braced against the door, said, “What if they already in?”

My hand closed on the portable phone just as I stepped back and almost tripped over Mildred. She was on her hands and knees, her bottom up in the air, as she reached under the bed.

Straightening up, she pulled out a single-barreled shotgun. “Don't worry, Lillian,” she said grimly. “I'll take care of them.” Then with a mighty pull on the bed, she hefted herself up, gun in hand.

“Lord, Mildred,” I said, stepping back, “put that thing back. You'll kill us all.”

“No, I won't, just whoever thinks they can break into my house. I've shot skeet with this little .410 a million times, and I don't mind using it on prowlers. Come on, let's see how they like the taste of birdshot.”

And off she headed, gun in hand and a grim look on her face. She pushed Lillian aside and sailed out into the hall, swinging the shotgun from one side to the other. “Who's here? You're about to get something you don't want.”

“Mildred,” I pleaded, “wait, wait, don't go out there. I'm calling 911.”

Punching in the numbers with a shaking finger, I put the phone to my ear and heard nothing. Clicking it off and on again, I redialed. Not even a dial tone. Slinging the phone down in despair, I hurried after Mildred, grabbing Lillian's arm as I went.

“Stay behind me,” I whispered. “I don't want either of us shot.”

Mildred crouched in the hall outside her door, swinging the shotgun back and forth. “Where'd you hear them?”

“Outside the back window of Horace's room,” I whispered back. “Against the wall. But let's go downstairs. We can sneak out the front door and run to my house.”

Mildred squinched up her eyes. “I'm not sneaking anywhere. This is my house and I'm protecting it.”

She was a changed woman. An hour or so before, she'd been driving me to distraction with her whining and clinging and helpless moaning. Now all I could see was a heavily armed Amazon in a lavender batiste nightgown with alençon lace inserts.

Charging briskly across the landing and carrying the shotgun with authority, Mildred headed for Horace's room. Lillian and I scurried after her, too frightened to stay behind.

“What she gon' do?” Lillian whispered, clasping a handful of my robe.

“I don't know, but don't get in front of her.”

Mildred stopped beside Horace's open door and pressed herself against the wall, the shotgun angled high. I'd seen the same thing on television.

As we edged close behind her, she whispered, “If anybody's in there, I'm firing. So be ready.”

“Mildred…” I started, but that was as far as I got.

Holding the gun in one hand, she grabbed my arm. “All together now, let's go!”

And she sprang into the dark room, pulling me with her, with Lillian so close behind that she stepped on my foot. The three of us stopped in a crouch, straining to see in the dark.

Lillian suddenly stretched out her arm, pointing at the window. “It's open! They already in!”

I had a brief glimpse of a swaying curtain by the open window, and my heart almost stopped. Then an explosion ripped the air as Mildred pulled the trigger. There was a flash of muzzle fire and the tinkle of shattered glass, and I felt a rain of pulverized plaster floating down. The recoil of the shotgun hurled Mildred into me and me into Lillian, and only the wall kept us all from landing in a pile on the floor.

Stunned and deafened, my mind reeling, I grabbed Lillian whose mouth was open in a scream I couldn't hear. Lillian scrambled against the wall, found a light switch, and the chandelier lit the room in a blaze of light. A haze of smoke and plaster dust hung below the ceiling and the reek of cordite filled the room. I stared in awe at the shattered glass, window frame and wall. Glass was all over the floor, and black smoke dribbled from the valance and one panel of the tattered silk curtains. Mullions dangled from the window and a hole the size of somebody's head gaped in the wall.

I dimly heard Lillian scream, then began to hear her words. “That thing on fire!”

She ran to the bathroom for a wet towel and began beating out the smoldering fire in the curtain.

“Watch out for the glass,” I yelled, hoping she could hear me, though I could barely hear myself. “You don't have shoes on.”

Mildred peered around. “Did I get anybody?”

“Just the window and half the house,” I said. “Mildred, put that gun up. Whoever it was is long gone by now.”

“Look out the window, Lillian,” she said, “and see if anybody's lying out there.”

“Oh, Lord,” I moaned, just as somebody started ringing the doorbell and beating on the front door.

Mildred cleared the shotgun, then said, “I better get some more shells.”

Dimly, I heard her name being called as the beating and banging continued on the front door. “Wait on the shells,” I said, holding her back. “Let's see who that is. We've probably roused the whole neighborhood.”

I hurried downstairs, turning on every light I saw on my way, and yelled through the closed door. “Who is it?”

“Sheriff's department! What's going on in there?”

I unlocked and swung open the door. “Thank goodness!” I cried as a much-too-young sheriff's deputy, looking frantic, stood before me with a huge flashlight in his hand. “Somebody tried to break in! Around the back! That way!” I pointed in the right direction.

The young deputy took off, loping across the porch and jumping over the azalea bushes at the end. I ran back upstairs to warn Mildred to hold her fire. Help had arrived.