“A woe-is-me type?” Ida said.
“I don’t know that he cultivated it, exactly. But the bitter crop came in all the same, and this year’s was apparently overwhelming in its fullness.”
“Was he distraught when you placed the order?”
“He was his usual not-so-glad self. But distraught? No, not particularly. He asked for five dollars down payment, which he’d not done before, and which I did give him, in cash, and who can say why he required this, but now I can’t help but wonder: Did he know what he would do some eighteen hours later? And if so, why did he take my order at all, to say nothing of my money, which I can only barely spare and shall never get back? In his letter’s postscript he stated a wish that the note would be printed verbatim in our local paper, and I myself brought this to the attention of the paper’s editor, but he wouldn’t allow it, suffering as he does from a grievous Catholicism.”
Having lapped the hotel’s exterior, and with the nighttime coming down and chill onshore winds growing stronger all the while, June proposed the time had come that they should remove themselves from the elements. Mr. More agreed; climbing spryly up the blue steps, he turned to face the group, taking advantage of his temporary elevation to give a little speech before granting them admission: “Friends,” he said, “I see you’re disappointed by the state of things, and I understand the disappointment, accustomed as I am with that mode of being; but in the meantime I am revitalized by your presence, and will do all I can to ensure your successes. I’ve wrapped the stage in three-quarter-inch red oak and rewired the footlights with a dimmer feature and the curtain has been cleaned and mended and dyed. Beyond this, I am simply beside myself with happiness at the thought of learning more about this new work. I put myself at your disposal, then, utterly and thoroughly; and while my abilities are finite, please know that my devotion to your practice is boundless.” June was pleased by this, but she was not quite ready to bury the whole hatchet, and so she repressed her pleasure as much as she was able. The truth was that she liked Mr. More to a degree that was uncommon in her life and experience. “Thank you, that’s fine,” she told him. “We can speak of the show after this much-heralded soup. Will you be asking for a role in the production right away, or later on?”
“Oh, right away,” said Mr. More assuredly, propping open the front door of the hotel with his foot and waving in his guests one by one. When Bob passed, Mr. More explained, “I always make an attempt to take part in their performances, and they always turn me down. It’s one of our small traditions. But in my two-armed youth, I was not unfamiliar with the life of the stage.”
He followed behind Bob, and now the group was standing together in a conservatory which preceded the lobby proper, and which was filled with the largest and wildest jungle plants imaginable. The temperature and humidity were adjusted to meet the needs and preferences of the plants, and so they were thriving in the environment, more than thriving. Actually, they had engulfed the enclosed space; certain of the plants were monsters over seven feet tall, with creeping vines crawling clear across the ceiling. Bob was impressed by the atmosphere; Ida and June, less so. They stood close by one another, quietly taking in the visual while Mr. More studied their physical behaviors in hopes of decoding their opinions.
“What has happened to the conservatory?” Ida finally asked.
“It’s all down to Mr. Whitsell.”
“And who is Mr. Whitsell?”
“He is Mr. Whitsell. Our lone long-term resident. He was an insurance man in North Dakota all his working life, from the age of eighteen and through to retirement at sixty-five, at which point he came west by bus, making his tour of the Pacific Ocean. But bus travel did not agree with him, and one morning he showed up with a look in his eye that read to me as an SOS. I took pity on the road-worn soul and gave him one of our finer suites at a fair rate. That was some years ago, and here he remains. My understanding is that he did not dislike the insurance game, and I do believe he had the knack, but there was always at the rear of his mind the belief that he had a second calling that he’d not addressed, namely hothouse botany. He spoke of it in the spring of last year and I, having an affection for the man, endeavored to enable him by furnishing him a space with which to achieve his ambition. The conservatory has always represented a lag or lack, for me. It’s its own separate locale, but what is it for?”
June said, “I quite disagree, Mr. More. I found the space perfectly charming.” She told Bob, “It used to be that this room was lined with deck chairs. And at dusk, Ida and the boys and I would lay our weary bodies out and witness the death of the day.”
“We sometimes did encourage the death of it,” Ida admitted.
“The sunsets were very striking, and were a balm against the collection of insults one gathers across the length of an afternoon,” June said. “Now you can hardly make out even a sliver of a horizon.” Mr. More was unhappy at the critical nature of the discussion and had begun opening and closing his mouth in the style of a fish freed from water. June set a hand upon his shoulder. “Soothe yourself. I’m not unimpressed by the room’s transformation; but it is a radical departure, and it is ungodly hot in here, don’t you think?”
Mr. More wouldn’t say whether or not he agreed with this; he would only allow that the time had come to exit the conservatory, and he led the group through to the hotel lobby by way of a rattling steam-wet six-pane French door. Bob did not follow along but lingered, as something in the far corner of the conservatory had caught his eye and he felt compelled to remain.
It appeared that a man was hiding himself away amid the greenery — hiding but looking back at Bob. Yes, a man surely was there and surely was hiding, and Bob said, “Hello?” and the man stepped out and presented himself: a small figure, a senior gentleman with white, neatly combed hair, and in an outfit of pressed pants, starched shirt rolled up at the sleeve, a knitted tie of a bright green coloring, and an immaculate white bib. He held in one hand a dainty tin watering can and in the other a gleaming silver spade, and altogether he was the cleanest gardener one could ever hope to see. Bob deduced that this was Mr. Whitsell, and, thinking the man may’ve been offended by Ida’s and June’s careless descriptions of the room, said, “I like the plants.” The man held the flat of the spade against his heart and bowed before returning to hide himself away amid the prehistoric leaves. Not knowing what else he might say or do in response to this person’s behavior, Bob left the conservatory and shut the door behind him.
The lobby was outfitted in dark-stained wood and was dimly lit by shaded lamps. There was no sign of Mr. More or Ida or June or the dogs but behind the front desk was a half-size door, which was ajar, and beyond which Bob believed he could hear voices. He ducked underneath the counter and stepped closer; when he heard June’s voice he felt emboldened, and he passed through the little door, following a worn carpeted runner down a thin hallway and toward the growing noise of the ongoing discussion. He stepped into Mr. More’s dining room to find the man and June and Ida seated at a table with bowls of steaming soup set out before them. Ida was eating determinedly while June was listening or pretending to listen to a story Mr. More was sharing or performing for her. When she saw Bob she brightened and pointed at the empty seat beside hers, then at the bowl of soup that had been set out for him. Bob could smell that it was a beef stew, and he was very hungry, and he moved to sit and eat and listen to these talking, talking people.
THE SOUP WAS CONSUMED AND THERE CAME THE TIME OF CONTEMPLATIVE quiet that often occurs at the end of a satisfying meal, and which Mr. More eventually interrupted by asking June, of Bob, “Well, now, what of the fugitive?”