Calamity Town

Pat Wright trudged up onto Ellery’s porch the Tuesday night after the wedding and said with an artificial cheeriness: “Well, Jim and Nora are somewhere on the Atlantic.”

“Holding hands under the moon.”

Pat sighed. Ellery sat down beside her on the swing. They rocked together, shoulders touching.

“What happened to your bridge game tonight?” Ellery finally asked.

“Oh, Mother called it off. She’s exhausted?been in bed practically since Sunday. And poor old Pop’s pottering around with his stamp albums, looking lost. I didn’t realize?quite?what it means to lose a daughter.”

“I noticed your sister Lola?”

“Lola wouldn’t come. Mother drove down to Low Village to ask her. Let’s not talk about . . . Lola.”

“Then whom shall we talk about?”

Patty mumbled: “You.”

“Me?” Ellery was astonished. Then he chuckled. ”The answer is yes.”

“What?” cried Pat. ”Ellery, you’re ribbing me!”

“Not at all. Your dad has a problem. Nora’s just married. This house, under lease to me, was originally designed for her. He’s thinking?”

“Oh, El, you’re such a darling! Pop hasn’t known what to do, the coward! So he asked me to talk to you. Jim and Nora do want to live in their . . . Well, I mean?who’d have thought it would turn out this way? As soon as they get back from their honeymoon. But it’s not fair to you?”

“All’s fair,” said Ellery. ”I’ll vacate at once.”

“Oh, no!” said Pat. ”You’ve a six-month lease, you’re writing your novel, we’ve really no right, Pop feels just awful?”

“Nonsense,” smiled Ellery. ”That hair of yours drives me quite mad. It isn’t human. I mean it’s like raw silk with lightning bugs in it.”

Pat grew very still. And then she wiggled into the corner of the swing and pulled her skirt down over her knees.

“Yes?” said Pat in a queer voice.

Mr. Queen fumbled for a match. ”That’s all. It’s just?extraordinary.”

“I see. My hair isn’t human, it’s just?extraordinary,” Pat mocked him. ”Well, in that case I must dash. Cart’s waiting.”

Mr. Queen abruptly rose.

“Mustn’t offend Carter! Will Saturday be time enough? I imagine your mother will want to renovate the house, and I’ll be leaving Wrightsville, considering the housing shortage?”

“How stupid of me,” said Pat. ”I almost forgot the most important thing.” She got off the swing and stretched lazily. ”Pop and Mother are inviting you to be our houseguest for as long as you like. Good niiiiiight!”

And she was gone, leaving Mr. Queen on the porch of Calamity House in a remarkably better humor.

Chapter 7

Hallowe’en: The Mask

Jim and Nora returned from their honeymoon cruise in the middle of October, just when the slopes of Bald Mountain looked as if they had been set on fire and everywhere you went in town you breathed the cider smoke of leaves burning. The State Fair was roaring full blast in Slocum: Jess Watkins’s black-and-white milker, Fanny IX, took first prize in the Fancy Milch class, making Wrightsville proud. Kids were sporting red- rubber hands from going without gloves, the stars were frostbitten, and the nights had a twang to them. Out in the country you could see the pumpkins squatting in mysterious rows, like little orange men from Mars. Town Clerk Amos Bluefield, a distant cousin of Hermione’s, obligingly died of thrombosis on October eleventh, so there was even the usual “important” fall funeral.

Nora and Jim stepped off the train the color of Hawaiians. Jim grinned at his father-in-law. ”What! Such a small reception committee?”

“Town’s thinking about other things these days, Jim,” said John F. ”Draft registration tomorrow.”

“Holy smoke!” said Jim. ”Nora, I clean forgot!”

“Oh, Lordy,” breathed Nora. ”Now I’ve got something else to worry about!” And she clung to Jim’s arm all the way up the Hill.

“The town’s just agog,” declared Hermy. ”Nora baby, you look wonderful!”

Nora did. ”I’ve put on ten pounds,” she laughed.

“How’s married life?” demanded Carter Bradford.

“Why not get married and find out for yourself, Cart?” asked Nora. ”Pat dear, you’re ravishing!”

“What chance has a man got,” growled Carter, “with that smooth-talking hack writer in the house?”

“Unfair competition,” grinned Jim.

“In the house” exclaimed Nora. ”Mother, you never wrote me!”

“It was the least we could do, Nora,” said Hermy, “seeing how sweet he was about giving up his lease.”

“Nice fella,” said John F. ”Bring back any stamps?”

But Pat said impatiently: “Nora, shake off these men and let’s you and I go somewhere and . . . talk.”

“Wait till you see what Jim and I brought?” Nora’s eyes grew big as the family limousine stopped in the Wright driveway. ”Jim, look!”

“Surprise!”

The little house by the big one glistened in the October sunshine. It had been repainted: the fresh white of the clapboard walls, the turkey-red of the shutters and “trim,” the Christmas green of the newly relandscaped grounds made it look like a delectable gift package.

“It certainly looks fine,” said Jim. Nora smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

“And just wait, children,” beamed Hermy, “till you see the inside.”

“Absolutely spick and utterly span,” said Pat. ”Ready to receive the lovebirds. Nora, you’re blubbing!”

“It’s so beautiful,” wept Nora, hugging her father and mother. And she dragged her husband off to explore the interior of the house that had lain empty, except for Mr. Queen’s short tenure, for three frightened years.

* * *

Mr. Queen had packed an overnight bag the day before the newly-weds’ return and had taken the noon train. It was a delicate disappearance, under the circumstances, and Pat said it showed he had “a fine character.” Whatever his reason, Mr. Queen returned on October seventeenth, the day after national registration, to find bustle and laughter in the little house next door, and no sign whatever that it had recently been known as Calamity House.

“We do want to thank you for giving up the house, Mr. Smith,” said Nora. There was a housewifely smudge on her pert nose.

“That hundred-watt look is my reward.”

“Flatterer!” retorted Nora, and tugged at her starchy little apron. ”I look a sight?”

“For ailing eyes. Where’s the happy bridegroom?”

“Jim’s down at the railroad station picking his things up. Before he came back from his apartment in New York, he’d packed his books and clothes and things and shipped them to Wrightsville care of General Delivery, and they’ve been held in the baggage room ever since. Here he is! Jim, did you get everything?”

Jim waved from Ed Hotchkiss’s cab, which was heaped with suitcases and nailed boxes and a wardrobe trunk. Ed and Jim carried them into the house.

Ellery remarked how fit Jim looked, and Jim with a friendly handclasp thanked him for “being so decent about moving out,” and Nora wanted Mr. ”Smith” to stay for lunch. But Mr. ”Smith” laughed and said he’d take advantage of that invitation when Nora and Jim weren’t so busy getting settled, and he left as Nora said: “Such a mess of boxes, Jimmy!” and Jim grunted: “You never know how many books you’ve got till you start packing ‘em. Ed, lug these boxes down the cellar meanwhile, huh?”

The last thing Ellery saw was Jim and Nora in each other’s arms.