“All right. Bring me a piece of that instead of toast.”
“You want a piece of angel food instead of your buttered toast?”
“Yes, May. A piece of angel food instead of my buttered toast. I’m not going to have buttered toast today. I’m going to have some of last night’s angel food.”
“Angel food,” said May, leaving.
George Lockwood went upstairs, washed his face and hands, and changed to a velvet smoking jacket and cracked patent leather pumps. May brought in the tea tray and put it in front of him on his desk. “Notice there’s four letters,” she said. “Margaret took them out of the box while I was up doing the third story. The least she could do was tell me.”
“I think the very least she could do,” said George Lockwood.
“That angel food’s a little stale. It gets stale if you leave it.”
“I like it that way. I don’t like it gummy.”
“In another day it won’t be any good.”
“In another day it won’t be here. I’m going to eat it all.”
“How you can eat so much and don’t get fat.”
“I’m very active. I’m busy all the time.”
“Yes. How’s the new house?”
“It’s finished. That’s why I’m having the cake.”
“It’s all finished? Everything?”
“All finished. From here on it’s Mrs. Lockwood’s job.”
“When are you going to take us out for a look? Margaret and I.”
“When I’m good and ready.”
“Do you know what I heard? Well, I didn’t hear it, Margaret did, but she told me.”
“What did Margaret hear and obligingly tell you?”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to repeat anything unless it was true.”
“We heard that one side of the house settled.”
“Settled? Oh, sank? Settled that way?”
“They’re starting rumors already, before you get in. I heard another one myself. Let me think, what was it? Oh! Are you giving this house for a hospital? That’s what I heard.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t finally decided what I’m going to do with this house. The doctors want to start a hospital. That’s probably what you heard.”
“No, I heard you gave it.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Is the new house settling?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“Then it is, huh?”
“I’m never going to deny or confirm anything about the new house, May. I’ve told you that before.”
“They done nothing but talk about that house, ever since you started building that wall. It sure did give this town something to talk about.”
“Was there ever a time when they didn’t have something to talk about?”
“I guess people always find something to talk about.”
“Yes indeed.”
“That’s what I was thinking. They always do find something. If it isn’t one thing, then it’s another.”
“No doubt about it. Now what else is on your mind, May?”
“There was something.”
“Yes.”
“I did tell you about some things come by parcel post.”
“No.”
“All stuff from New York City, all addressed to her.”
“Things for the new house, I imagine.”
“Oh, now I remember what I wanted to ask you.”
“Ah, good. What, May?”
“No, that wasn’t it. I did ask you that. Oh! Yes! Margaret and I were talking, and the subject came up of Andrew and his wife. In the new place are they gonna have rooms over the grodge?”
“Why?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind, but Margaret said she wouldn’t want to live out there in that lonely place if there wasn’t a man there at night. Me, I’m used to it. I was born-raised on a farm, so I don’t mind. But Margaret, she’s used to town.”
“You’re a simple soul, May.”
“Why do you say that? Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. It depends on how you mean it.”
“You are being used as a pawn. Andrew and his wife are the ones who really want to know about the garage. Andrew has been trying to find out for over a year. So he’s got Margaret to get you to find out. Do you see that, May?”
“Oh. Well, yes, in a way I guess I do. Well, then, don’t tell me. I’ll just go back and tell Margaret I couldn’t find anything out.”
“I have no intention of telling you, or Margaret, or Andrew, until I’m good and ready. You and Margaret have been with me long enough to know that, but you never seem to learn.”
“I learned. I told Margaret we wouldn’t find anything out.”
“But she thought it was worth a try.”
“Yes, she thought it was worth a try. Almost her exact words.”
“Yes, Margaret likes to be clever, forgetting that Andrew’s even cleverer. All right, May. You may take these things away. I’m going to have my bath, and dinner at seven-thirty. What are we having for dinner?”
“Veal cutlets.”
“Good, and while I think of it, I want to sleep tomorrow morning. Don’t bring my coffee till ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock?”
“Ten—o’clock. You’d better write it down on the slate, as soon as you get to the kitchen. ‘His coffee at ten.’ “
She smiled. “How do you know that’s what I’ll write?”
“Because I make it a point to know a lot of things, Mabel Christina Freese, born April 12, 1886.”
“Don’t tell Margaret the year.”
“I won’t.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said. At the beginning and at the end of all their chats May Freese would remember to say sir, but the suspicion that he was enjoying himself with her made formality impossible during the in-between part. She was a strong, hard-working woman, who was beginning to realize that time was getting short for her, but in the not unpleasant routine of domestic service—the hours were long, but the tasks were simple—she postponed the positive action that she felt she ought to take. She was uncertain and vague as to what that action should be.
George Lockwood read the Gibbsville afternoon paper through, and refolded it and left it where May would find it. He rose, stretched, and was about to go upstairs when the telephone rang. He lifted the receiver and said: “Hello—all right, May, I’ll take it. Hello.” May, in the kitchen, hung up.
“Mr. Lockwood? It’s Deegan, Matthew Deegan? Out at the place?”
“Yes, Deegan.”
“Can you hear me all right? I’m calling from the shanty.”
“Yes, I can hear you. What’s the trouble?”
“I thought I better tell you, Mr. Lockwood. We’d an accident out here. It’s a bad one.”
“Yes, what kind of an accident? A fire?”
“No sir. It’s a young lad, we don’t know his name for sure, but he’s dead. He was killed.”
“Killed? On my property? How did he get in?”
“Him and another young lad, they climbed up a tree on the outside of the wall, the Richterville side.”
“The west wall. Yes.”
“This one lad, the dead one, he climbed up the tree and out on one of the limbs that extended over the top of the wall.”
“There’s no limb extending over the top of the wall that’s strong enough to support a man.”
“That’s how he got killed. The limb broke and he fell on top of the wall. Two of them spikes went in him, Mr. Lockwood.”
“Oh, Christ! Jesus! You mean he was impaled?”
“I didn’t hear that, Mr. Lockwood.”
“The spikes went through his body?”
“He let out a scream, and I ran in that direction, and there he was.”