Maggie was shaking her head again.
“I tell you we heard nothing and saw nothing; we were going about our...”
“You can hear all in this house,” Maggie said. “I can even hear themselves when they roll over in bed.”
“But we heard nothing. And saw nothing. We know nothing but what we ourselves were doing. Whatever else transpired, we did not hear or see.”
“Will you tell that to your father?”
“Yes. Now fetch your basin,” she said, and Maggie hurried out of the room.
I’ll tell him nothing, she thought. I’ll inquire about the mail, I’ll mention that Mrs. Borden is not yet back, I’ll — well, wait. I’ll say... he’ll wonder where she’s gone and what’s keeping her... I’ll say... well, yes, she told me there are people sick in town, I’ll say she had a note from someone who’s sick and went to visit... yes... that will explain her lengthy absence. And when later... when later she’s not yet returned, we’ll notify the police in concern for her, and they shall be the ones to find her upstairs, the police, and we shall all be astonished and amazed and explain to them that we were going about our normal business with no idea whatever of what horror rested just above our heads, yes, that’s how I’ll do it, if only he would hurry home before my resolve—
She heard a clicking at the front door.
Someone trying to insert a key into the lock.
Her father!
All she planned to tell him evaporated at once, all the facade she hoped to present to him crumbled in that instant of his imminent entrance, and she fled for the stairs, planning to lock herself in her room, hide from him, and was halfway up the stairs when she heard the doorbell ringing insistently, and then Maggie’s voice shouting, “Coming!” and then more softly as she crossed the sitting room and moved toward the front door, “Miss Lizzie?” and the doorbell rang again. She heard Maggie setting something down, the basin she had gone to fetch, heard the doorbell again, the impatient clamor of it, and she stood quite still on the staircase, listening as Maggie fumbled with first the spring lock and then the key.
“Oh, shit!” Maggie said, and on the staircase Lizzie laughed, and then suppressed the laugh as she heard the door opening wide and her father saying, “I’ve forgotten my key. I’ve been trying the wrong key. Took you long enough to open this door.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Maggie said, “I was washing the windows.” Her voice was steady and calm. She would be all right. She would behave as she’d been instructed.
“Still at them, eh?” her father said. “Well, then, where’s Mrs. Borden?”
They had moved into the sitting room now. Lizzie stood silent and motionless on the staircase, her eyes level with the second-floor landing, her stepmother’s body clearly visible through the open door to the guest room.
“I don’t know where she might be, sir,” Maggie said. “I saw her leaving at nine, somewhat at nine.”
“Not back yet, eh?”
“I haven’t seen her, sir.”
“Well, go about your business,” he said. “Will you be long in here?”
“Only a bit, sir.”
“I’ll use the dining room then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s Lizzie?” he asked.
“I... don’t know, sir.”
A slight wavering of the voice.
“Well, is she in the house, or has she gone out?”
“I think she’s in the house, sir.” A pause. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Well, do your windows; I’ll get out of your way.”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
Lizzie looked once again at the open door to the guest room. She took a deep breath and went down the stairs. Her father was sitting in the dining room. There was a parcel wrapped in white paper on the dining-room table, and alongside that the maiclass="underline" several legal-sized envelopes, a larger yellow envelope, a long brown pasteboard cylinder. Maggie was coming from the kitchen now, carrying a stepladder. Her eyes met Lizzie’s. Neither of them said a word.
“You got to the post office then,” Lizzie said.
“Yes.”
“Anything for me?”
“Nothing. What’s this ironing board doing in here?”
“I’m waiting for my flats.”
“Will you be ironing then?”
“As soon as they’re hot.”
“Looks messy, things lying about this way.”
“I’ll put it away as soon as I’ve finished. What’s in the parcel?”
“Eh? Oh, an old lock I picked up at the store they’re fixing for Clegg.” He shrugged. “Might come in handy.” He was sorting through the mail now. He picked up the pasteboard cylinder. “I hope this is the survey,” he said, and poked his finger into the brown-paper wrapping at one end of the cylinder, tearing it. He eased from the cylinder a rolled document, partially unrolled the stiff paper, said, “Yes, good,” and in explanation, “Some land that interests me. Out Steep Brook Way. Where’s your mother, do you know?”
“Visiting someone who’s sick,” Lizzie said.
“Oh? Who?”
“She didn’t say. She had a note...”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And went out directly afterwards.”
“I didn’t see anyone with a note,” her father said. “This morning, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t see anyone,” he said again, and shrugged. “I’ll take this upstairs, all this work going on down here,” indicating with a hand gesture the ironing board on the dining-room table, and with a movement of his head Maggie on the stepladder. He went into the sitting room, took his key off the mantelpiece shelf and then came back to gather up the mail. In the kitchen he put the mail down on the table, lifted the stove lid over the firebox and dropped the empty document-cylinder into the hole. “Not much of a fire here, you plan on heating these flats,” he said to Lizzie. “Your wood’s only smoking.” He put the lid back on the stove, and looked at the floor. “Splinters all over the floor here,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said, “I’ll sweep them up.”
“Chop your kindling on the block below,” he said, “where you should. And take that hatchet downcellar, where it belongs.”
“Yes, father,” she said.
“See to it,” he said, and picked up his mail and started up the stairs to his room. Maggie turned to her at once.
“Did he...?”
“Shhhh!”
They waited.
They could hear his footfalls on the back stairs. They heard the door to his room open and then close. The house was still again.
“Did he believe you, do you think?” Maggie whispered. “About the note?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t think so,” Maggie said. “I’m scared to death, I’m not sure I can...”
“You’ll be fine.”
“He’ll want to know what’s keeping her. When she hasn’t come back...”
“Shhh!”
They heard his footfalls on the back stairs again. He went into the kitchen and then the pantry. They heard the water tap running over the pantry sink. When he came through into the dining room again, he said only, “Hot as the devil upstairs; are you about through in here, Bridget?”
“Just finishing, sir.”
“Well, hurry about it, would you?”
He went into the sitting room, took off the Prince Albert coat, moved the sofa cushion and tidy to one side and draped the coat loosely over the sofa arm. He seemed about to lie down. Surveying Maggie at the windows, he changed his mind, went out into the front entry where his wool cardigan reefer hung in the small closet and came back into the sitting room. He put on the reefer, pulled a rocking chair over to the light streaming through the windows, and sat in it. Maggie raised the window near his chair. He turned to look at her, annoyed, and then picked up the morning paper again as she carried her stepladder into the dining room. She went back into the sitting room once, to pick up her water pail and her basin, and then began washing the windows in the dining room. Lizzie came through from the kitchen, one of the flatirons in her hand. Their eyes met again. They said nothing.