“This story . . . what about it?”
The woman saw the farm as the car slowed at the lip of the hill. She was dimly aware that the car was in low gear, with brakes on, slithering down the loose gravel of the steep incline.
The farm, she thought with a greedy intensity that shook her heavy body; safety at long, long last. And only a senile old man and a girl standing between her and possession.
Between her – and the hard, sordid years that stretched behind her. Years of being a widow with two children in a tenement house, with only an occasional job to eke out the income from the relief department.
Years of hell!
And here was heaven for the taking. Her hard blue eyes narrowed; her plump, hard body grew taut – if she couldn’t take the treasure of security that was here, she’d better—
The thought faded. Fascinated, she stared at the valley farm below, a green farmhouse, a great red barn and half a dozen outhouses. In the near distance a vast field of wheat spread; tiny wheat, bright green with a mid- spring greenness.
The car came down to the level of the valley; and trees hid the distant, rolling glory of the land. The automobile came to a stop, its shiny front pointed at the gate; and, beside her, the heavily built boy said:
“This it, ma?”
“Yes, Bill!” The woman looked at him anxiously. All her ultimate plans about this farm centered around him. For a moment she was preternaturally aware of his defects, his sullen, heavy, yet not strong face. There was a clumsiness of build in his chunky, sixteen-year-old body that made him something less than attractive.
She threw off that brief pattern of doubt; she ventured: “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Naw!” The thick lips twisted. “I’d rather be in the city.” He shrugged. “But I guess I know what’s good for us.”
“That’s right.” She felt relieved. “In this world it’s what you get, not what you want. Remember that, Bill . . . what is it, Pearl?”
She spoke impatiently. It was the way her daughter always affected her. What good was a pasty-faced, twelve-year-old, too plump, too plain, and without the faintest promise of ever being pretty. With an even sharper annoyance, the woman repeated:
“What is it?”
“There’s a skinny old man coming across the field. Is that Mr Wainwright, ma?”
Mrs Carmody turned slowly and stared in the direction Pearl was pointing. And, after a moment, a current of relief surged through her. Until this instant she had felt a sharp edge of worry about the old man. Old, her sister-in- law had written in her occasional letter. But she hadn’t imagined he’d be this old. Why, he must be ninety, a hundred; utterly no danger to her at all.
She saw that the driver had opened the gate, and was coming back to drive the car through. With a new confidence she raised her voice at him:
“Wait!” she said, “wait for the old man. He’s been out for a walk, and he’ll be tired. Give him a lift to the house.”
Might as well make a good first impression, she thought. Politeness was the watchword. Iron hands within velvet gloves.
It struck her that the driver was staring at her peculiarly; the man said: “I wouldn’t count on him driving with us. He’s a queer old duck, Mr Wainwright is. Sometimes he’s deaf and blind, and he don’t pay attention to no one. And he does a lot of queer things.”
The woman frowned. “For instance?”
The man sighed. “Well, ma’am, it’s no use trying to explain. You might as well start learning by experience, now as later. Watch him.”
The long, thin figure came at an even, slow pace across the pasture to the south. He crossed the road, passing the car less than three feet from the fenders, seemingly completely blind to its presence. He headed straight for the gate.
Not the open gate, wide enough for the car to go through, but the narrow, solidly constructed wooden gate for human beings. He seemed to fumble at some hidden catch. And then—
The gate did not open, but he stepped through as if it had.
Stepped through the solid wooden gate.
For a long second Mrs Carmody was aware of a harsh woman’s voice screaming. With a terrible shock, she realized it was her own voice.
The effort to choke that wild cry was so horrible that she fell back against the seat, the blood hammering at her temples. She sagged there, sick, cold as ice, her vision blurred, her throat ash dry, every muscle in her body jumping with tiny, painful surges of nervous convulsion; and, for a long moment, her mind wouldn’t hold thoughts.
“Just a minute!” Kent interrupted the driver. “I thought you told me the old man was alive at this time. How come he walked through the gate?”
His narrator stared at him strangely: “Mr Kent, the only reason that old man hasn’t made us all crazy these past twelve years is that he’s harmless. He walked through gates when he was alive just as he does now. And not only gates. The difference is that we know we buried him. Maybe he’s always been a ghost, and killing him don’t do no good. All we know is, he’s harmless. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
Kent nodded, but there was a world of doubt in his voice as he said:
“I suppose so; anyway, go on.”
The dark blur of fear in the woman’s mind yielded to an awareness of tugging at her arm; and then she realized that the driver was speaking:
“It’s all right, ma’am, he’s just a queer, harmless old man. Nothing to get excited about.”
It was not the driver, but the boy beside her, whose words pulled her together; the boy saying rather scornfully:
“Gee, ma, you sure take on. I seen a trick like that on the stage last year, only it was better than that. It don’t mean a thing.”
The woman began to feel better. Bill was such a solid, practical boy, she thought gratefully. And of course he was right. Some trick, of course, and – what was that stupid little fool of a girl saying. She found herself repeating the question out loud:
“What did you say, Pearl?”
“He sees us, ma – look!” the girl said.
The woman saw that the old man was peering at her over the gate. A thin, long, gentle, wrinkled face it was, bright with gathering interest. He said with an astonishingly crisp voice for one so old:
“You’re back from town rather early, Mrs Carmody. Does that mean an early dinner?”
He paused politely; then: “I have no objection naturally. I am only too happy to fit myself into any routine you desire.”
The deadly thought that came to her was that she was being made ridiculous in some way. Her face grew taut, her eyes narrowed, then she mustered an uncertain smile, and tried to force her mind past his words. The fierce whisper of the driver rescued her from that developing confusion:
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” the man said hurriedly, “don’t let on you’re new here. He’s got the gift of seeing, and he’s been acting for months as if you were already here, and, if you contradict him, it only puzzles him. Toward the end, he was actually calling Mrs Wainwright by your name. He’s just a queer old man.”
Mrs Carmody sat a very still, her blue eyes brighter, wide with abrupt calculation. The thrill that came was warm along her nerves. Expected!
One of the several things she had feared was this moment of her arrival; but now – expected!
All her careful preparation would go over smoothly. The letter she had forged so painstakingly, in which the dead woman, the old man’s granddaughter,
The woman shook herself firmly. This was no time to worry about the curious actions of an old man. She had a farm to take over; and the quicker that problem was solved, the better.
She smiled again, her thick face smirking a little with the comfortable glow of her inner triumph.
