The Sundial (9 page)

_____

Julia parked the car at the main corner of the village, where the Carriage Stop Inn faced the hardware store. “Any place in particular?” she asked. “The nearest subway station, maybe?”

“I plan to visit every shop in the village,” Aunt Fanny said stiffly. “Aside from certain preparations which must be made, I feel it incumbent upon me to make one or two last purchases from each shop; a gesture of some importance, as I see it. The villagers must see that we do not break faith with them, even now.”

“What about Miss Ogilvie here?” Julia asked. “You don't mean her to come with
me
, I suppose?”

“I will accompany Aunt Fanny,” Miss Ogilvie said. “Perhaps I shall drop in at the lending library and browse.”

“And you, Julia?” Aunt Fanny asked. “Can you amuse yourself for an hour at least, perhaps even an hour and a half? I hesitate to propose the lending library.”

“I'll find something to do,” Julia said vaguely. “Don't worry about me. Just getting out of that house is enough.”

“Those two young men you are looking at in that field are the Watkins brothers,” Aunt Fanny said tartly. “Good for nothing, both of them. They may look as though they are lying in the shade under a tree, but they will tell you that they are actually out shooting rabbit, or picking apples, or some such nonsense. The Halloran family arranged for the older one to drive one of the dairy trucks from the city, but at the end of a month or so he left them, although they could never actually prove that he had made off with the collection money.”

“I wouldn't dream of going near them,” Julia said. “I'll meet you right here in an hour and a half.”

“Perhaps,” Miss Ogilvie suggested timidly, “Julia would be interested in seeing—I know
I
have always wanted to—in seeing the Harriet—”

“Miss Ogilvie,” Aunt Fanny said, “I would not suppose that even Julia would be guilty of such self-indulgence. Julia, I would recommend the cemetery. There are several old markers, the oldest in this part of the country. The Halloran family vault is particularly well-carved; my father and mother rest there.”

“The cemetery,” Julia said. “Naturally. Will I have trouble finding it?”

“I hardly think so,” Aunt Fanny said. “The last building on your right is the church. The cemetery is just beyond it.”

“If I get lost,” Julia said, “I will ask a policeman.”

She drove off, going slowly, and Aunt Fanny and Miss Ogilvie stood for a minute, looking after her. Then Aunt Fanny settled herself briskly and said, “Miss Ogilvie, as I told you, I have really a good deal to do. I must not lose time. I have already sent off a great many orders to stores in the city, and today I must complete my shopping; small purchases I cannot overlook.”

“Why?” said Miss Ogilvie. “I mean—” she blushed “—why do you have to buy things
now
, when . . . when . . .”

“
Dear
Miss Ogilvie. There are
so
many things one is reluctant to leave behind. Even you must perceive that we do not know, yet, what we shall wish, afterward, that we had brought with us, and there will be no coming back, afterward, to collect items we have forgotten.”

“Food,” said Miss Ogilvie, nodding. “I understand.”

“I have absolute faith in my father. But we must try to think of
everything
.”

“Perhaps I can help, then,” Miss Ogilvie said. “At least, I can help you carry your packages.”

“Carry packages? I?”

“Small things . . .” Miss Ogilvie made a helpless gesture.

“Miss Ogilvie, please do try to be more sensible. I cannot stand here in public, in what is after all the very center of the village, trying to teach you the habits of a lady. I have really no time at all to spend reasoning with you.” Purposefully, Aunt Fanny crossed the street and went into the hardware store, Miss Ogilvie following wretchedly.

_____

After the hardware store, Aunt Fanny visited the grocery and then the little shop where Mrs. Martin sold her jams and jellies and yard goods and an occasional pie upon order. When they left old Mrs. Martin, Miss Ogilvie hesitated and glanced wistfully across the street. “The lending library,” she said apologetically. “Something to pass the time, you know. I don't suppose,” she added with a flash at Aunt Fanny, “that I need worry about
returning
it.”

“As a matter of fact,” Aunt Fanny said, “I believe I also need a book.”

The lending library was tucked into one corner of the gift shop run by the Misses Inverness, and relied for trade rather heavily upon the transient souvenir-hunter rendered into a stupor by the home-fried chicken and pecan pie of the Carriage Stop Inn next door. Miss Inverness kept the library and Miss Deborah Inverness sold gifts; some inner integrity had preserved their shop from being a shoppe, but when the Misses Inverness had first decided to go into trade Miss Inverness had taken some of the stigma away from the shop by hiring Mr. Ossian, the carpenter, to put Elizabethan half-timbering across the front, and to set in an inglenook around the fireplace. The gifts were almost without exception made of china, delicately colored, and involving numberless small deer and kittens and scottie dogs. Miss Deborah did the dusting herself, naturally, and her sister kept the books. Miss Inverness wore purple crepe with her mother's garnet brooch, and tended to be brusque, although she knew—none better—that her heart was really of gold; Miss Deborah wore a little locket around her faded neck and had once been in love with a music teacher.

There had been a little tiff between them three summers ago over ashtrays, since the late Mrs. Inverness had not permitted smoking indoors, and the late Mr. Inverness had been accustomed to take his cigar in the lobby of the Carriage Stop Inn. Miss Deborah had insisted with unusual spirit that even proper ladies—Mrs. Halloran up at the big house, for one—used ashtrays nowadays and had as much as accused her sister of not keeping up with the times. Miss Inverness had capitulated, asking her sister irritably how long Mrs. Halloran at the big house had been setting the standards for the Inverness family? and the gift shop now stocked tiny porcelain shell ashtrays. Miss Inverness read a chapter from Henry James aloud every evening, and they drank their tea from fragile, gold-rimmed cups which had been a legacy to their mother from the first, mortal, Mrs. Halloran.

When Aunt Fanny opened the door a little bell rang musically, and Miss Inverness rose from her seat in the inglenook; Miss Deborah, cornered among the china, could only smile most cordially.

“Caroline,” Aunt Fanny said; she and Miss Inverness had played together as children. “How nice to see you.”

“Miss Halloran,” said Miss Inverness, “Deborah, Miss Halloran is here. And Miss Ogilvie,” she said. “How nice.”

“How nice,” said Miss Deborah, coming with caution between the tables. “Miss Halloran. Miss Ogilvie. How very nice.”

“How nice,” Miss Ogilvie said to Miss Inverness, and to Miss Deborah, “How nice to see you again.”

“How well you look,” Miss Inverness said. “And Mr. Halloran—is he well?”

“Not well at all,” Aunt Fanny said, and Miss Ogilvie nodded sadly. “I am sorry to say that he does not keep well,” Aunt Fanny said. “My nephew's death . . .”

“Such a terrible blow,” Miss Inverness said, and Miss Deborah murmured, “Tragic.”

“It is a very sad thing to lose an only son,” Miss Ogilvie confirmed.

“And dear little Fancy?” Miss Inverness turned to her sister with a brightening face. “Dear little Fancy?” she said.

“Such a sweet child,” Miss Deborah said. “She was in here with her mother not long ago. Of course, it was before . . .” her voice trailed off, and she moved a hand eloquently.

“Naturally,” Miss Inverness said. “She took a great pleasure in our new little china dogs, made in Italy, you know. Such a
careful
child. She was really quite
quite
taken with them.”

“You must see them,” Miss Deborah said. “Miss Halloran, you positively must see our new little dogs. The Italians do these things so colorfully, I always think. Dear little Fancy was positively enchanted. I think she was particularly taken with a dear little blue poodle, sister?”

“Such an engaging toy,” Miss Inverness said.

“Dare I take Fancy a little something?” Miss Ogilvie said to Aunt Fanny. “Do you think it might be . . . perhaps . . . a little consolation to her?”

“Children are so easily comforted,” Miss Inverness said, and Miss Deborah said, “Poor child, some small pleasure might mean everything in the world to her right now.”

“We'll certainly take it to her,” Aunt Fanny said. “And we are interested, Miss Inverness, in books.”

“Of course,” Miss Inverness said. “Something to read?”

“Light, please,” Miss Ogilvie said. “Some cheerful light reading. It's only to pass the time. So difficult, just waiting,” she explained to Miss Deborah.

Miss Inverness laughed roguishly. “I know better than to offer Miss Halloran most of the poor things they are publishing today. There are, however, some few really
excellent
books, some I can honestly recommend, I mean. Some I have read myself, and so has my sister.”

“We had better take several,” Miss Ogilvie said. “We have no idea how long we will have to wait.”

“I see,” said Miss Inverness. “Then you would naturally need several.”

“
I
want,” Aunt Fanny said, “at least one book on surviving in the wilds.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Inverness, and Miss Deborah said, after a moment,
“Surviving?”

“A book which would tell how to build a fire and how to catch animals for food. A certain amount of first aid, too, I expect. Such information as that.”

“I can hardly begin to think—” Miss Inverness began.

“A Boy Scout Handbook,” Miss Ogilvie said unexpectedly. “I used to have a brother,” she confided in Miss Deborah.

Miss Inverness breathed again. “For Fancy,” she said.
“Naturally.”

“To comfort her,” Miss Deborah said.

“And,” said Aunt Fanny, “I would like, if possible, a fairly elementary book on engineering, and chemicals, and perhaps the various uses of herbs. Perhaps an encyclopedia.”

“Well, now,” said Miss Inverness, “I
know
that we would not have an
encyclopedia
. Perhaps the library in the big house . . .”

“It's fairly old,” Aunt Fanny said. “No really
new
information. Physics, you know, and politics. I wonder if we have time to order a new one.”

“But what would little Fancy want with an encyclopedia?” Miss Deborah wondered. “Are you going to send her to school?”

“I was not brought up to be evasive, Miss Deborah,” Aunt Fanny said. “I have immediate need for a good deal of practical information on primitive living. Survival. I have no way of knowing what we may be called upon to do for ourselves.”

“Aunt Fanny,” Miss Ogilvie said, “Miss Inverness and Miss Deborah have always been so kind . . . so thoughtful. Would it not be an act of friendship to include them in our future?”

“I confess I had thought of it,” Aunt Fanny said. “But I do not think it will offend Caroline or Deborah if I point out, frankly, that our need will be for more sturdy, more
rugged
personalities. Remember, our little group must include builders and workers as well as—” she blushed faintly—“the mothers of future generations.”

“I am sure,” Miss Inverness said with some stiffness, “that neither my sister nor myself has any desire to be looked upon as a worker, and it is long since we gave up any notion of breeding children. I am astonished, Frances Halloran, to hear you talk so coarsely. I would not have expected it, not in front of my sister.”

“I apologize,” said Aunt Fanny, who could afford to be mild. She turned to Miss Ogilvie. “You see,” she said, “it is not fair to
them
. We need a different kind of person altogether.”

“If your needs are what they seem to be,” Miss Inverness said, not altogether mollified, “I assure you that my sister and myself must refuse, most firmly, to be included in any way whatsoever.”

“Caroline, dear,” Miss Deborah said gently.

“I am sorry,” Miss Ogilvie said. “I should never have said anything at all. It was only because one so rarely meets congenial persons, really congenial, and I thought it would be a shame to lose Miss Inverness and Miss Deborah as friends. I am sure they have always been
most
respectable, and it will be sad to think of them after they are gone.”

“Our mother brought us up to be respectable, I hope, Miss Ogilvie. I will get your Boy Scout Handbook.”

Still contrite, Aunt Fanny selected half a dozen novels, the blue poodle for Fancy, and a shell ashtray for Essex. Miss Deborah made everything into a neat package, which was left in the shop for Julia to gather in later when she came back with the car. Miss Inverness was cool in her farewell to Aunt Fanny, and gave Miss Ogilvie only a small bow; Miss Deborah accompanied them to the door of the shop, troubled and civil, and opened the door for them, the faint musical tinkle of the door-bells for a moment overriding her voice before her sister called her sharply.

On the sidewalk outside the shop Miss Ogilvie said, “Well, I'm happy to think that we will probably never go in
there
again. I think Miss Inverness has gotten very crotchety.”

“Like her mother,” Aunt Fanny said. “Candles,” she said, “candles. I forgot candles.”

“Then I'll just run in and have a cup of coffee, dear,” Miss Ogilvie said. “In the drug store, because they look at you so strangely in the Inn when you only order coffee.”