die of the effort. First he thought it was the next morning, the morning after the coma began, and he spoke about having to meet you at eleven o’clock-“
“Yes, we had an appointment,” Rosemary said.
“And then he seemed to realize what had happened and he began telling the nurse that I was to give you the book. He repeated himself a few times and that was the end.” Grace Cardiff smiled as if she were making pleasant conversation. “It’s an English book about witchcraft,” she said.
Rosemary, looking doubtfully at the package, said, “I can’t imagine why he wanted me to have it.”
“He did though, so there you are. And the name is an anagram. Sweet Hutch. He made everything sound like a boy’s adventure, didn’t he?”
They walked together out of the auditorium and out of the building onto the sidewalk.
“I’m going uptown; can I drop you anywhere?” Grace Cardiff asked.
“No, thank you,” Rosemary said. “I’m going down and across.”
They went to the corner. Other people who had been at the service were hailing taxis; one pulled up, and the two men who had got it offered it to Rosemary. She tried to decline and, when the men insisted, offered it to Grace Cardiff, who wouldn’t have it either. “Certainly not,” she said. “Take full advantage of your lovely condition. When is the baby due?”
“June twenty-eighth,” Rosemary said. Thanking the men, she got into the cab. It was a small one and getting into it wasn’t easy.
“Good luck,” Grace Cardiff said, closing the door.
“Thank you,” Rosemary said, “and thank you for the book.” To the driver she said, “The Bramford, please.” She smiled through the open window at Grace Cardiff as the cab pulled away.
Seven
She thought of unwrapping the book there in the cab, but it was a cab that had been fitted out by its driver with extra ashtrays and mirrors and handlettered pleas for cleanliness and consideration, and the string and the paper would have been too much of a nuisance. So she went home first and got out of her shoes, dress, and girdle, and into slippers and a new gigantic peppermint-striped smock.
The doorbell rang and she went to answer it holding the still-unopened package; it was Minnie with the drink and the little white cake. “I heard you come in,” she said. “It certainly wasn’t very long.”
“It was nice,” Rosemary said, taking the glass. “His son-in-law and another man talked a little about what he was like and why he’ll be missed, and that was it.” She drank some of the thin pale-green.
“That sounds like a sensible way of doing it,” Minnie said. “You got mail already?”
“No, someone gave it to me,” Rosemary said, and drank again, deciding not to go into who and why and the whole story of Hutch’s return to consciousness.
“Here, I’ll hold it,” Minnie said, and took the package-“Oh, thanks,” Rosemary said-so that Rosemary could take the white cake.
Rosemary ate and drank.
“A book?” Minnie asked, weighing the package.
“Mm-hmm. She was going to mail it and then she realized she’d be seeing me.”
Minnie read the return address. “Oh, I know that house,” she said. “The Gilmores used to live there before they moved over to where they are now.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been there lots of times. ‘Grace.’ That’s one of my favorite names. One of your girl friends?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said; it was easier than explaining and it made no difference really.
She finished the cake and the drink, and took the package from Minnie and gave her the glass. “Thanks,” she said, smiling.
“Say listen,” Minnie said, “Roman’s going down to the cleaner in a while; do you have anything to go or pick up?”
“No, nothing, thanks. Will we see you later?”
“Sure. Take a nap, why don’t you?”
“I’m going to. ‘By.”
She closed the door and went into the kitchen. With a paring knife she cut the string of the package and undid its brown paper. The book within was All Of Them Witches by J. R. Hanslet. It was a black book, not new, its gold lettering all but worn away. On the flyleaf was Hutch’s signature, with the inscription Torquay, 1934 beneath it. At the bottom of the inside cover was a small blue sticker imprinted J. Waghorn & Son, Booksellers.
Rosemary took the book into the living room, riffling its pages as she went. There were occasional photographs of respectable-looking Victorians, and, in the text, several of Hutch’s underlinings and marginal checkmarks that she recognized from books he had lent her in the Higgins-Eliza period of their friendship. One underlined phrase was “the fungus they call ‘Devil’s Pepper.-
She She sat in one of the window bays and looked at the table of contents. The name Adrian Marcato jumped to her eye; it was the title of the fourth chapter.
Other chapters dealt with other people-all of them, it was to be presumed
from the book’s title, witches: Gilles de Rais, Jane Wenham, Aleister Crowley,
Thomas Weir. The final chapters were Witch Practices and Witchcraft and Satanism.
Turning to the fourth chapter, Rosemary glanced over its twenty-odd pages; Marcato was born in Glasgow in 1846, he was brought soon after to New York (underlined), and he died on the island of Corfu in 1922. There were accounts of the 1896 tumult when he claimed to have called forth Satan and was attacked by a mob outside the Bramford (not in the lobby as Hutch had said), and of similar happenings in Stockholm in 1898 and Paris in 1899. He was a hypnoticeyed black-bearded man who, in a standing portrait, looked fleetingly familiar to Rosemary. Overleaf there was a less formal photograph of him sitting at a Paris cafe table with his wife Hessia and his son Steven (underlined).
Was this why Hutch had wanted her to have the book; so that she could read in detail about Adrian Marcato? But why? Hadn’t he issued his warnings long ago, and acknowledged later on that they were unjustified? She flipped through the rest of the book, pausing near the end to read other underlinings.
“The stubborn fact remains,” one read, “that whether or not we believe, they most assuredly do.” And a few pages later: “the universally held belief in the power of fresh blood.” And “surrounded by candles, which needless to say are also black.” ,
The black candles Minnie had brought over on the night of the power failure. Hutch had been struck by them and had begun asking questions about Minnie and Roman. Was this the book’s meaning; that they were witches? Minnie with her herbs and tannis-charms, Roman with his piercing eyes? But there were no witches, were there? Not really.
She remembered then the other part of Hutch’s message, that the name of the book was an anagram. All Of Them Witches. She tried to juggle the letters in her head, to transpose them into something meaningful, revealing. She couldn’t; there were too many of them to keep track of. She needed a pencil and paper. Or better yet, the Scrabble set.
She got it from the bedroom and, sitting in the bay again, put the unopened board on her knees and picked out from the box beside her the letters to spell All Of Them Witches. The baby, which had been still all morning, began moving inside her. You’re going to be a born Scrabble-player, she thought, smiling. It kicked. “Hey, easy,” she said.
With All Of Them Witches laid out on the board, she jumbled the letters and mixed them around, then looked to see what else could be made of them. She found comes with the fall and, after a few minutes of rearranging the flat wood tiles, how is hell fact met. Neither of which seemed to mean anything. Nor was there revelation in who shall meet it, we that chose ill, and if he shall come, all of which weren’t real anagrams anyway, since they used less than the full complement of letters. It was foolishness. How could the title of a book have a hidden anagram message for her and her alone? Hutch had been delirious; hadn’t Grace Cardiff said so? Time-wasting. Elf shot lame witch. Tell me which fatso.
But maybe it was the name of the author, not the book, that was the anagram. Maybe J. R. Hanslet was a pen name; it didn’t sound like a real one, when you stopped to think about it.
She took new letters.
The baby kicked.
