Brightly, and she hoped not too wildly, she said, “You’ve finished ever so many! I’ll pack while you wrap.”
She began placing the dishes he had wrapped in a barrel and stuffing newspapers’ around them. She was conscious that he made no move to resume wrapping, instead continuing to watch her from strangely alert eyes, but she kept her own gaze concentrated on her work, hoping ostrich-like this would somehow conceal her paleness.
Eventually he stooped and again began wrapping dishes. But his former air of inattention had evaporated. During the next hour and a half she was acutely aware of his silent examination, and tension grew in her until she worked like an automaton, hardly conscious of what she was doing because of her fear of the man at her side. Not once during this time did she speak.
Then four of the barrels were filled and there were no more dishes to pack. All excuse for silence was gone.
Attempting a smile that failed, she looked past his shoulder instead of at his face and said in too high a voice, “The rest of the dishes are still in the kitchen cabinet. Let’s stop for lunch.”
Not awaiting reply, she went into the house, forcing herself to move without hurry. Supporting herself against the kitchen sink, she closed her eyes and let a controlled tremor loosen the tight muscles of her body.
Another minute and she would have screamed, she thought. She must get a grip on her emotions and think of her guest as George Steuben instead of as a maniac. He probably was Mr. Steuben, she mentally added, without conviction.
She brought herself to steadiness by conceiving of her situation as a struggle between two different parts of her. The maniac, if he were a maniac, was not her danger. Her own fear was the enemy, and the courage to conceal it her only defense. Insane or not, he meant her no harm, of that her mind, if not her emotions, was convinced. Her sole danger was inciting his anger by disclosing to him her unreasoning fear.
He remained on the porch while she prepared lunch, and by the time she had cut up and fried the chicken, she had calmed to the point where she was able to call in a firm voice, “Lunch is ready, Mr. Steuben.”
When he came into the kitchen she was even able to manage a hostesslike apology for the meal.
“I’m afraid it’s a camping-out sort of thing,” she said. “But I wasn’t expecting a guest.”
They ate with their plates on their laps, seated on boxes which she had him bring from the front room. During lunch she exercised her new-found self-control by chatting casually about the house and about Tom’s new job in Kingston. At first she found herself speaking too rapidly, and as he listened without comment, there grew in her a horrible feeling that she must continue chattering forever because he would grow violent the moment she stopped. But when his alertness gradually faded to inattention, her confidence grew, and by the time lunch was over her fear had subsided to a mild uneasiness.
She decided her guest actually was Mr. Steuben, and being alone so much recently had oversharpened her imagination.
After she had washed the dishes and he had wiped, they went back to work. And as practice improved the part she was playing, no one would have suspected that beneath her occasional matter-of-fact remarks lay the embers of hysteria.
Once when his hand accidentally touched hers, she jerked away so suddenly he flushed and his mouth corners drooped. But even this she was able to counteract with gay chatter, and neither mentioned the contact.
By two o’clock the last barrel was filled and there was nothing more to do but wait for the arrival of the truck in the morning. Her battle was nearly won, for Tom would phone at any time now, and she meant to ask him to come for her immediately. She n o longer had any intention of spending the night in the house, even though her guest probably was merely the new owner.
As they both relaxed on the porch steps with cigarettes, the phone began to ring. Maida cocked her head to listen, counting three short and two long.
“That’s us,” she said, rising. “Probably Tom to tell me not to forget the slippers he left.”
She went into the kitchen and was raising the receiver before she noticed he had followed and was standing in the door watching her. She hesitated, wondering how she could get her feelings across to Tom without making her guest suspicious, then managed an impersonal smile in his direction and placed the receiver to her ear.
She said, “Hello,” into the phone, and Tom’s voice said, “Maida, are you all right?”
“Of course,” she said quietly, conscious of her guest’s eyes upon her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I was just kind of worried. Heard a radio report about a maniac escaping from Belmont, and he was last seen a couple of miles from there. You close and lock all the downstairs shutters and doors, will you?”
She said, “All right, dear. But you don’t have to worry. I’m well protected.” Deliberately she made her voice falsely bright in the hope Tom would catch the false note.
“How do you mean?”
“Mr. Steuben arrived a day early. He’s sleeping in the maid’s room tonight.”
Tom did not reply for such a long time, she knew she must have succeeded in transmitting a sense of something being askew. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low she could barely hear him.
“Can Mr. Steuben hear or see you now, Maida?”
“Both,” she said. “Why?”
“Maida, listen to me carefully and don’t change your expression. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
Her relief at having so easily gotten across her call for assistance mixed with surprise at his perceptiveness, for ordinarily Tom was not so psychic to her moods. But his next words explained his immediate grasp of the situation.
His voice came so slowly the words were spaced to stand individually in her mind. “Maida, I was bringing George Steuben out in the morning. He’s sitting here with me now.”
Psychologists say cowardice is nine-tenths fear of the unknown, that courage increases with know ledge of definite dangers to be faced. Not so with Maida. Against the uncertain possibility that she was isolated with a homicidal maniac, courage had built a defense around her one vulnerability — hysteria. The sudden removal of uncertainty left a chink in her defensive armor through which slow fear seeped, growing and spreading until she was suffused with terror.
She held the phone to her ear and simply waited, knowing the colorless eyes in the doorway were watching her and the ears were taking in her side of the conversation. She felt she could not speak, could not hang up, could not move, ever, but must dumbly sit through eternity with the phone in her hand.
Tom said, “Maida, if he’s still listening, repeat after me carefully: ‘All right, dear. See you in the morning.’ ”
She made a desperate effort and managed to say dully, “All right, dear. See you in the morning.”
“Good girl. Now keep control of yourself and don’t rouse his suspicion. I’m starting right now.”
After he hung up, another fifteen seconds passed before she was able to put down the receiver. She rose stiffly, not looking at the man in the doorway, and somehow managed to propel herself to the sink. She drew a glass of water and sipped at it while she fought to stem a fit of trembling.
It’s no different now than it was a minute ago, her intellect told her, but her emotions screamed. He’s insane! He’s insane and he’s watching me!
She had to regain control of herself. Nothing was changed. He was the same mart she had worked beside all day without suffering harm. She was still safe as long as she did not arouse his anger by exhibiting fear.
“Was that your husband?” asked a quiet voice immediately behind her.