The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg/Chapter 3
AS Mrs. Weatherby had explained, food meant little to her; it was rather the things of the spirit in which she found satisfaction. There were two reasons for this, one, that she really had no taste for food and could not distinguish good food from bad, and the other, that no matter how great her efforts, no matter the number of Yogi exercises which she practiced, it was impossible to keep her majestic figure within bounds. The trouble was with her glands.
The night after her strange callers had gone off in the black and red motor of the Princess d'Orobelli she and Miss Fosdick seated themselves to a dinner of veal and spaghetti and wilted salad served by the same Margharita who a little while earlier had been pinched by the chauffeur of the Princess. There was also a little of that acid wine which Italy produces in vast quantities. Miss Fosdick hated veal and from a too great familiarity detested spaghetti. She liked good food and only once in two years, when she had escaped secretly to a restaurant, had she tasted it.
But the meal was a little better than usual because Mrs. Weatherby was in high spirits over the success of the afternoon and the glory reflected upon her as the sole existing friend of Miss Annie Spragg. For Miss Fosdick this was a condition as rare as good food. The sweet disposition, the poise, the trained smile and the throaty voice, the sweet expression which Mrs. Weatherby exhibited to the world—all these were bought at a cost, paid in the beginning by Alonzo Weatherby and after his death by Miss Fosdick. All her ill temper was poured out upon their heads.
She observed to Miss Fosdick that Father d'Astier was a devout and charming man, that the Principessa was a woman of great distinction and that Mr. Winnery (although he had scarcely uttered a word) was a man of great intelligence.
"We must do something about the villa," she said, "now that we have begun to receive people."
She watched Miss Fosdick. She had a way of watching her companion as if to measure how much she might be told, for one could not afford to betray oneself to a companion. But as both grew older Miss Fosdick appeared to notice less and less what happened about her. She was, after all, (reflected Mrs. Weatherby) a perfect companion, docile and admiring, never intruding her own personality, and, most important of all, she was a companion who could not quit her place. Miss Fosdick no longer even gave in to those fits of hysterical weeping which had been so trying, or if she did weep, she wept in private where it would not disturb anyone. "What would the poor lamb have done without me?" thought Mrs. Weatherby. "She would have been helpless in this world, probably doing sewing by the day in Winnebago Falls. She is only a child, after all."
They sat in the grand salon with the superb view over the valley because as yet there was no furniture for the dining-room. From time to time Mrs. Weatherby would lean over and murmur, "Do Too-Too and Lulu want to eat?" at which the two Pomeranians, yapping, would spring into the air to snap at the piece of veal she held on her fork. The candles burned without a flicker in the still hot air and Margharita shuffled in and out noiselessly in felt slippers. It was the same night after night. This was the middle of August and it had been exactly the same every night since the middle of May. On the opposite side of the table Miss Fosdick stared out of her round eyes across the dark valley. The excitement of callers had made her a little seasick, so that she was uncertain whether she could eat or not. She thought, "I shall go insane. I can stand it no longer."
Mrs. Weatherby continued eating the tired lettuce. "You aren't listening, Gertrude. I said we must do something about the dining-room, now that visitors have begun to come."
"We might drive into Brinoë tomorrow."
"Not in this heat. You know how this heat affects you. I shouldn't mind it. If you could only believe as I do, the heat would have no effect upon you."
"Perhaps we'd better leave it until next year. It's so late in the season." (This, Miss Fosdick knew, was what she was meant to say.)
"Yes, next year," echoed Mrs. Weatherby, and then tartly, "You don't seem to take any interest in anything any more."
Next year (thought Miss Fosdick) they would come out here and live in the same dreary fashion. Nothing would be done. And no one would come to see them except some crazy woman who would talk magnetism and spirit control. And next year and next year and next year. . . .
"If you can't listen I might as well go to bed. Considering all I do for you. . . ."
Miss Fosdick never heard the end of the sentence, for Mrs. Weatherby, in one of her sudden tempers, had rushed out of the door, followed by the yapping Pomeranians. On her way she knocked over her chair and the sound of it striking the stone floor echoed through the empty villa long after she had gone. Miss Fosdick's expression did not change. There was a buzzing in her head. The room seemed suddenly to swell to enormous proportions and then contract again. She lifted the tired lettuce to her mouth and ate mechanically. Everything was so still and breathless and hot. "I shall go mad," she thought. "I shall go mad."
It was the return of Margharita that brought her out of the sudden trance. She decided that she was glad of the quarrel, for it gave her a chance to be alone for a little time. If she stayed away long enough Aunt Henrietta would send for her and then when she came, Aunt Henrietta would sulk and refuse to talk. Anything was better than talking, feeding, feeding, feeding, the vanity of Aunt Henrietta. What the world failed to give her Miss Fosdick was forced to supply, and at the moment the world of Brinoë was simply ignoring Mrs. Weatherby.
Then suddenly Miss Fosdick thought with a pang, "I have been rude and ungrateful. We are two women alone together in the world. I must not forget that. I owe her everything in the world. But for her I shouldn't be here in this beautiful spot, in this interesting and historic country." But almost at once she was overcome with a loathing for the villa, for Brinoë, for all of Italy. She had to live there. She could see no way of ever escaping this alien, unsympathetic land where everything seemed romantic and untidy, fantastically beautiful and reeking with smells.
"If only I could speak Italian," she thought, "I could at least talk to the servants now and then. I must try and learn next winter."
But she knew she never would learn. She had never learned anything. There was nothing, she told herself, that she could do. She was not clever enough.
"I will go out into the garden until I've recovered my temper."
In the garden the air seemed cool and there was a smell of fresh earth coming from the trench that had been dug for the cesspool. The moon had risen to the top of the sky and its light fell full upon the roof of fading plantain leaves, so that the carpet of moss below was flecked all over with a pattern of silver. Usually she was afraid at night in the garden, with that fear of darkness and the unknown that had paralyzed her timid nature since childhood. And there was something special about this garden. She always had a feeling of being watched by invisible eyes. It was too old, too haunted by its incalculable antiquity. But tonight the shadows seemed less ominous and the faint whispering of the leaves even friendly. It may have been the light showing from the servants' wing that gave her courage, or it may have been a sudden overwhelming conviction that anything was better than talking to Aunt Henrietta.
"I must not think that," she told herself. "Aunt Henrietta is right. It is evil thoughts that destroy us and make us old. . . . But what difference does it make whether I am old or not? Nothing can ever happen to me. I am thirty-eight years old and nothing has ever happened. I am getting fat and no man would ever look at me even if I had the chance to know one.
"Still," she thought, blushing a little, "that Mr. Winnery did look at me today."
She found herself presently at a spot in the garden where the jasmine climbed over the pitted stone balustrade that overhung the deep valley. A few pale blossoms still gleamed in the moonlight and the fragrance drifted through the still air under the colonnades of trees. The scent came to her vaguely, awakening and sharpening her senses and drawing her thoughts away from herself. Leaning over the balustrade she broke off a blossom and smelled of it, half dreaming. "That Mr. Winnery who was here today. . . . He was polite to me. But I shan't ever see him again."
She turned away and wandered down one of the long allées, but after a few steps she halted and thrusting the jasmine blossom into her hair, patted it smooth again and then set off, following the wall. She walked a long way half-dreaming, half-aware that far down in the bottom of the valley on the opposite side there was an automobile moving along the lonely road toward Monte Salvatore. The distant sound of the motor drifted up from the valley below, and then all at once she was aware that the sound had stopped and that the car was not moving. It sat quite still at a point almost directly opposite the villa. It seemed an odd place to stop, in the very midst of an empty valley where there was no inn, no house and nothing but rocks and olive trees.
Watching it, she thought again of Mr. Winnery. He was a small man and not handsome, but he had nice manners and a kind face. It would be nice to know that. . . . It would be pleasant to feel safe. . . . Her thoughts went silly and muddled and she found herself blushing in the darkness. Surely she was going mad.
How long she stood there dreaming she did not know, but presently she was aware of the familiar terrifying certainty that she was no longer alone. The light in the servants' wing had gone out. It was as if something were watching her out of the shadows. A wild impulse stronger than her own terror compelled her to turn and look fearfully over her shoulder, and then she discovered that she was standing a dozen feet from the new-found statue. It lay against the black ilex, white and glistening in the moonlight. She saw the face with an extraordinary clearness and all the too rich beauty of the voluptuous body. For a time she remained fascinated and chilled with terror, and then in the most unmaidenly fashion she gathered up her skirts and ran toward the darkened villa. Once inside the door she fell upon the stone flagging and lay there so overcome by panic that she was unable to rise.
At ten o'clock, sitting in the vast empty room which she called her boudoir Mrs. Weatherby lost patience and began ringing the great brass bell with which she was accustomed to summon the servants. Not only was she out of patience, but disturbed. Miss Fosdick had never before remained away sulking for so long a time, and there came to Mrs. Weatherby that faint and unlikely suspicion which sometimes raised its head, that her companion might have run away.
She had not gone. There was a timid knock on the door and Miss Fosdick entered, looking, Mrs. Weatherby thought, pale and agitated.
"It seems to me, Gertrude, that you're old enough not to sulk."
"I wasn't sulking, Aunt Henrietta."
"I've finished my exercises long ago. I thought you were never coming."
Miss Fosdick did not answer, but took up the hair-brush and began her nightly task of soothing Mrs. Weatherby's frayed nerves. The large empty room was lighted by two candles and an oil-lamp which stood on the dressing-table before an antique mirror in which Mrs. Weatherby's countenance gazed out, blotched and hazy, from the age not so much of Mrs. Weatherby's face as of the quicksilver. The great religious experimenter had changed into a white peignoir trimmed with white maribou. The exercises to which she referred were a series of facial contortions which she practiced each night for forty-five minutes in order to give firmness to the muscles of the face and sweetness to the expression. "Everything by nature," was her creed, and "the power of mind over matter." No flake of powder, no morsel of rouge, no cream of any sort, had ever touched her face and so her skin had that weather-beaten, tough look that marks the skin of those firm women who are above vanities.
Miss Fosdick, brushing the hair slowly (eight strokes to the minute was Mrs. Weatherby's formula) was having bitter thoughts. "Why," she asked herself, "should she want to keep young? Certainly it is not to attract men. She hates the attention of men. Maybe she wants people to remark how young she looks for sixty-five." And almost at once she reproached herself for having thoughts, so lewd, disloyal and cynical.
At the same time Mrs. Weatherby was thinking, "Now is a time when I wish Gertrude had some sense. I'd like to talk over this conversion affair, but I can't risk it."
It was one of the times when the indomitable woman was put to rout by the very simplicity of her companion. She spoke again without turning, "You haven't changed your mind?"
"No, Aunt Henrietta. I tried praying but I got no answer."
Mrs. Weatherby answered her with a snort and the pair fell back into silence. Presently Miss Fosdick, looking out of the window, saw that the motor on the road far down the valley had not moved. Someone had dimmed the lights. She thought of calling Aunt Henrietta's attention to it, and then changed her mind through a desire to spite her by keeping this bit of excitement a secret.
Mrs. Weatherby kept thinking of her approaching conversion. It was a subject which had occupied her a great deal lately; indeed, ever since she had abandoned the idea of founding a new religion out of her experience with new faiths. The idea of an "eclectic" faith combining the best points of all religions had come at length to die for lack of energy and any sense of organization. She was a muddled woman and being very rich she had no need of the material gains which commonly reward contemporary prophets. Indeed, the whole idea had been rather a failure. She had come to Brinoë to pass her twilight ("old age" was an expression she never used), expecting something of that triumph and that notoriety which had come to her in Winnebago Falls and later at Carmel and Los Angeles; and now it seemed that she had drawn a blank. No one noticed her, even when she drove to the town dressed all in white carrying tuberoses. There was, she told herself, too much competition among eccentrics in Brinoë. It was worse, even, than Los Angeles. (At the moment, as she sat before the blotched mirror, she experienced an actual jealousy of the posthumous notoriety of Miss Annie Spragg. That queer old woman had succeeded where she had failed.)
She wanted notice and flattery and no one in Brinoë noticed her and no one flattered her save a little group of Marchesas, Principessas and Contessas, all old and dowdy and poor who thought they might get something from her. At first the mention of their titles pleased her and then she made the disillusioning discovery that Marchesas and Contessas were as thick as flies in Italy, and her natural shrewdness told her that they were simply leeches. People in Brinoë seemed not to be interested in Messages and clung stubbornly to conventional forms of religion. Two years of campaigning had brought her nowhere.
Being entirely without sensibility she was never bored and so could not understand boredom in others. She did not know into what depths of boredom she had plunged her three visitors that very afternoon. She never imagined the depths of boredom in which poor Miss Fosdick had spent the better part of twenty years,—depths so profound that at times she goaded Mrs. Weatherby into abusing her simply for the sake of change. It had never occurred to her, who had known such triumphs in Carmel and Los Angeles, that in Brinoë she was regarded simply as a colossal bore from whom people fled after one meeting as from a plague. She, the imposing Henrietta Weatherby!
She had a passion for knowing what she called "interesting people," and Brinoë, she felt, must be alive with "interesting people"—writers, painters, musicians and others who were simply "characters." It was simply a matter of meeting them. She firmly and naïvely believed that parties made up of people who were "doing things" instantly became charged with fascination, wit and brilliant conversation. It never occurred to her that in groups musicians are vain and egotistical, painters hostile and technical and writers envious and mean-spirited. To her they were all just fascinating.
For months she had given thought to the question of how to make herself interesting. Being as devoid of talents as of sensibility, she could not suddenly become a singer, writer or painter, and being mean by nature she could not bring herself to buy her way to the things she desired. So in the end she had fallen back upon her great asset—her interest in religion. At last she had hit upon a plan. She would be converted to the Catholic faith and become a pillar of devoutness. Perhaps she would even gain a place for herself in that Papal party referred to in mysterious whispers by the Marchesa as the Blacks. Religion, she told herself, was her sphere. She had spent a lifetime studying religions and this very fact would give to her conversion a certain sensational interest. Having been much in the public prints in America she thought of each new adventure in headlines. "Famous experimenter of many faiths turns to bosom of Mother."
From the moment she reached a decision she had set about with energy planning the conversion. The Marchesa, to whom she expressed a casual interest in the Roman faith, advised her to be instructed by Father d'Astier as the most fashionable of worldly missionaries. She let it be known to Miss Fosdick that a conversion was expected from her at the same time, but Miss Fosdick, who had followed with docility through the mysteries of Christian Science, of Theosophy, of Bahaism, New Thought and Self Expression, suddenly rebelled at Rome. Something in her with roots deep in New England and Congregationalism stubbornly refused to undertake what she referred to crudely one day as Popery. She was so firm, so amazingly fanatic on the subject, that even Mrs. Weatherby was thrown down in defeat.
Sitting before the mirror while Miss Fosdick brushed her hair Mrs. Weatherby turned over in her mind the idea of becoming a Papal Countess. In her imagination she tried over the title, "Countess Weatherby . . . Countess Weatherby." It sounded a little ridiculous. Still she had heard of other Papal Countesses with names that sounded more absurd—Irish names. If only there was such a title as "Lady." "Lady Weatherby" sounded quite distinguished. And then she frowned as she thought that such titles were purchased for good solid money, not bought really, but given in exchange for rich gifts to the Church. And giving money was to her like cutting off a piece of her own flesh.
That is probably the reason, she thought, why Father d'Astier came all the way out here in the heat. He knew that she was rich . . . that and his curiosity about the miracle of Miss Annie Spragg.
At the thought of Miss Annie Spragg her eyes narrowed a little. She wished that she knew exactly how the Church meant to treat the miracle. If the Church canonized Annie Spragg it would be a great help to her (Mrs. Weatherby). She could bathe in the glory of having been the only person in Italy (except Gertrude, who did not count) who knew the queer old woman. She could indeed pose as the best friend of the saint. That would advance her a long way, further, indeed, than any amount of money. Perhaps they would make Annie Spragg a saint. They'd probably never discover that she was the daughter of old Cyrus Spragg the Prophet, nor ever hear the scandalous stories that had gone the rounds of Winnebago Falls, nor all those things she herself had chosen not to reveal. Father d'Astier had refused to commit himself. Father d'Astier, her shrewdness told her, was a clever man who would need managing if she were to get from him what she desired.
She yearned passionately for a confidante with whom she might discuss all these things, but with Gertrude it was impossible. In her stupidity she would not understand their complications. Undoubtedly she would put upon them the wrong interpretation.
In the placid bosom of Miss Fosdick there was a fury asmoulder and with each stroke of the brush it blazed and gained in strength. She had reached a pitch of boredom and irritation wherein she no longer asked herself whether she was being disloyal. All such self-inquiry was being buried under tides of long-pent-up resentment. It was as if all her softness had for twenty long years concealed a core of inflexibility. She was at that moment giving birth to a character, bringing decision into a soul where before there had been no decision. And it was such a small thing that kindled this great flame—the fact that Mr. Winnery had looked upon her as if she were a woman. She had not actually seen him do it. She had felt him looking at her while Aunt Henrietta was telling that interminable and inaccurate story of the villa. She was aware that in the look there was admiration, perhaps even desire. It was years since such a thing had happened to her. Not since that organist at the Bahai Temple. . . .
Above Mrs. Weatherby's grey head she saw her own reflection in the mirror and she noticed presently many things that she had forgotten to notice for a long time past—that she had pretty hair, smooth and shiny and still a mousey brown, that her eyes were blue and attractive and that her nose was red and shiny. She thought, "I will buy powder the next time I go to Brinoë, and I will use it whether she likes it or not." (She had suddenly ceased thinking of Mrs. Weatherby as Aunt Henrietta but merely as she.) Miss Fosdick even wondered if her hair would be becoming cut short like the Principessa's flaming locks. "No," she told herself, "I am too fat. I must try to lose weight. I must write for one of those diets advertised in the Ladies' Own World." Having been born with a fine high color which needed only toning down, she had no need of rouge. "Still," she thought giddily, "a touch on the lips—just a touch."
Mrs. Weatherby interrupted her. "Don't pull so hard. You know how it affects my nerves."
Miss Fosdick had a wild impulse to say "Humph" and, giving the grey hair a good pull, to throw the brush on the floor, but the force of habit was stronger than her new-born character and she went on with her task. When one had done the same thing at the same hour three hundred and sixty-five times a year for twenty years the effect became paralyzing. She tried to calculate how many times she had brushed that hateful grey head. Twenty times three hundred and sixty-five (sometimes three hundred and sixty-six) times one hundred and eighty strokes. But the problem was quite beyond her. She was very poor at figures.
A sense of power rose in her with the knowledge that she had refused flatly to become converted and that she had taken it quietly. One had one's right to a religion. Nobody could command you to change your faith, thought Miss Fosdick. People had been burned for refusing to change, by that very Church which Aunt Henrietta was considering. "I could never meet my mother in Heaven with her knowing I had taken up with Popery." It was the first time she had ever refused Aunt Henrietta anything.
Memories of ancient wrongs began to well up in her soul. Clarence Hazeltine she might have married but for Aunt Henrietta, who said she was too young to marry and carted her off to California. Clarence—she saw him again through mists of sentiment—thin, a little bald at thirty, round-shouldered and round-eyed. Timid he was. If he hadn't been he wouldn't have let her be carried off.
Again Mrs. Weatherby interrupted her. "Really, Gertrude, I don't know what has come over you. You know what a sensitive scalp I have."
Again Miss Fosdick had an impulse to hurl the brush, this time through the blotched old mirror. Again habit chained her.
"And you needn't sulk, either," added Mrs. Weatherby.
Sulk! Sulk! thought Miss Fosdick. If she only knew what I was thinking. By now Clarence probably owned the drugstore and had a family that might have been her own family. And there was that young organist at Carmel who played in the Bahai Temple and came to call night after night. He might have married her but for something she did. She suspected Aunt Henrietta of telling him that if he married Gertrude neither of them would ever get a cent from her. Maybe he did mean to marry her for Aunt Henrietta's money. "Well," Miss Fosdick thought, "what of it? At least I'd have been married. Something would have happened to me. It would be better than being a fat old maid. Something has got to happen to me! Something! Anything! Anything at all!"
Mrs. Weatherby was speaking again. "I'm afraid I have one of my headaches again. Some enemy is directing ill will toward me."
Again Miss Fosdick made no answer. She knew what the speech meant. In a moment Aunt Henrietta would ask her to sit by the bed all night exerting her will against the currents of malice being projected at Aunt Henrietta by some unknown enemy. If she only knew that on those occasions Miss Fosdick never stayed awake at all but slept roundly sitting upright. Nothing ever kept Aunt Henrietta awake when she felt like sleeping.
"Oh, I mean to escape," Miss Fosdick kept telling her interiorly, as if to break down the chain of habit. "Oh, I mean to escape, all right." She gazed malignantly at the image of Mrs. Weatherby, who was doing her nails and practicing her expression of sweetness at the same time. "Ah, if she only knew." But Miss Fosdick hadn't the least idea what she meant to do.
All this time she had been watching the clock and counting the strokes of the brush with a part of her mind that seemed immune from that wild torrent of rebellious thought. One hundred and forty-two, one hundred and forty-three . . . eight strokes to the minute according to Mrs. Weatherby's schedule.
Aunt Henrietta was speaking again. "I'm afraid, dear, that I'll have to ask you to sit by me tonight."
It was not possible that it was coming so surely, exactly as she had known it would come. This time she might have thrown down the brush, but before she had time to act there rose in the still air the sound of a voice calling in Italian, "Hello! Hello in there!" and the sound of vigorous knocking on the main door.
For a second the gaze of the two women, so hostile and now suddenly frightened, met in the blotched old mirror.
"Who could it be?" whispered Mrs. Weatherby, who was always afraid of something. "At this hour of the night?"
They listened for a moment and then the knocking was repeated and the shouting.
"Go to the window, Gertrude."
Miss Fosdick, with the hateful brush still in her hand, went timidly to the window on the opposite side of the room. Below her the graveled courtyard lay drenched in moonlight and bordered by the lean black shadows of the cypresses. She was aware that the motor with dimmed lights still stood on the opposite side of the valley. At first she could see no one, and then after a moment a tall man stepped from the shadow of the portico into the moonlight and called up to her in Italian. Miss Fosdick understood only the word "telephone," and partly in gestures, partly in bad Italian, explained that there was no telephone. The stranger at once began speaking English in a deep melodious voice with scarcely any accent.
His companion stepped into the moonlight and Miss Fosdick recognized him. It was dirty old Pietro, who kept goats and lived in a hut among the olive trees half-way up the mountain.
The stranger explained that he was motoring from Siena to Brinoë and that he had had an accident. Some thief had charged him for forty litres of petrol and put only twenty into the tank of his motor. If they had no telephone he was lost, unless by some miracle they had a few litres of petrol.
Behind Miss Fosdick Mrs. Weatherby had crossed the room and was standing discreetly in the shadow, peeping from the shelter of a curtain.
There was a miracle and the miracle was the Ford which Giovanni used for going into Monte Salvatore. There must be some petrol in the tank. It stood in a part of the vast ruined stable built by the Spanish Ambassador to house his Arab horses.
"I suppose," whispered Mrs. Weatherby, "we must help him, but I don't like people who wander about in the night." She moved to the window and called down, "Young man, turn the light on your face."
"Old Pietro is with him," murmured Miss Fosdick hopefully.
The stranger did as commanded. He was not a young man though his figure was trim and slender. He might have been forty-five. He was distinguished and certainly handsome in a dark, almost Moorish fashion. The humor of the situation had caused him to grin.
Trembling with excitement, Miss Fosdick, still carrying the hair-brush absentmindedly in one hand, took up a candle and clattered down the stone stairs in her slippers. She was so excited that she even forgot to be afraid of the garden and made her way without a tremor through the tunnel that led into the courtyard. There the stranger met her murmuring a thousand apologies made with all the overwrought extravagance of Latin courtesy. He was dressed in beige tweeds and wore a cap and yellow buckskin gloves. The wind from Africa had died away at last and the candle burned in the still air without a flicker. By its yellow light Miss Fosdick saw that he was older than she had believed and of an aspect even more romantic than she had imagined. Thinking in terms of Aunt Henrietta's speech she told herself that it was Force that he had . . . Personal and Magnetic Force. She thought, "Things are beginning to happen to me. He is exactly like the hero of 'In a Winter City.'"
Despite herself, her manner became overwrought and arch. She explained that Mrs. Weatherby was afraid of Italian servants. . . . She had heard stories in Carmel . . . and that all the servants slept in a pavilion near the stables. She led the way to the stables, followed by the stranger and old Pietro, who limped as he walked and kept muttering to himself. The miracle at the stables was even greater than she had hoped. In the shadows and among the ghosts of the Spanish Ambassador's Arab horses they discovered the battered Ford. The gasoline tank was full to the brim.
The stranger appeared in such great haste that he threw himself down without a thought into the dust and grease beneath the Ford and set to work filling the two bidons he carried with him. When he had finished he rose and insisted upon seeing Miss Fosdick back through the shrubbery despite all her fluttering protests that she was not afraid. In the thickest part of the shrubbery he even touched her arm gently with an old-fashioned courtesy. The implication that Miss Fosdick was so fragile that she might easily slip in the darkness and injure herself flattered her vanity, and made her feel very small and feminine. At the door he took out a soft leather wallet and taking from it a card gave it to her. It was then that she discovered for the first time with embarrassment that in one hand she still held Mrs. Weatherby's hair-brush. Strands of Aunt Henrietta's grey hair still clung to it.
Bowing, the stranger said, "This is my name. I will send a cheque tomorrow. Whose name shall I put on it?"
She wanted to say, "Oh, no. Don't think of it," in a grand and generous manner, but she knew Aunt Henrietta would insist upon being paid for the petrol. She should at least have answered, "Mrs. Henrietta Weatherby," but in an insane burst of unmaidenly behavior, she murmured, "Miss Gertrude Fosdick," and spelled it for him as he wrote it down. "F-o-s-d-i-c-k."
He took off his cap and bowed elaborately once more and disappeared, and then for the first time she was able to look at the card. Being far-sighted and not having her glasses, she had to hold it far from her. She read,
El Duque de Fuenterrabía
El Marqués de Santoban
For a moment she feared her knees would give way. It was just like a novel, she thought. Just like a novel. It was like one of those stories of Ouida, one of the things you got in a paper-backed edition. Just like "In a Winter City." The hand trembled with excitement and the flame of the candle trembled too. Her shadow trembled on the ancient wall so that it looked as if she were dancing. Presently she shut the door and shot the huge iron bolt, but as she closed it she caught a sudden glimpse of the statue gleaming white in the moonlight and felt suddenly frightened again.
A voice from the top of the stairs brought her back to the horrid reality.
"What on earth are you doing, Gertrude? They have gone long ago."
Then Miss Fosdick remembered that there were still thirty-seven strokes of the brush to be done.
When she re-entered the bedroom, Aunt Henrietta was awaiting her in a cold fury. She exhibited all the signs of what Miss Fosdick described to herself as "a tantrum." She had been working toward this point ever since dinner-time. Miss Fosdick knew the signs—the look of fury in the eye, the distended nostrils of the large, fleshy nose, the fat hands clasping the foot of the bed, the heavy breathing. With her thin grey hair hanging about her face, she was a terrifying sight that caused all the flame of rebellion burning in Miss Fosdick's bosom to turn to water and flow away.
For a moment Mrs. Weatherby stood regarding her in a cold silence as if choosing how she should begin. Then suddenly she found what was needed.
"What on earth have you got in your hair?" she cried out. "I think you must be crazy lately . . . an old maid like you putting flowers in her hair, as if a man was going to look at you."
Something exploded in Miss Fosdick's brain. She hurled the brush and the candle on the floor. The card of Oreste Valmente, Duke of Fonterrabia and Marquis of Santoban, fell with them.
"I'll put what I like in my hair and you can go to Hell."
For a moment Mrs. Weatherby recoiled as if Miss Fosdick had struck her a blow. "Oh! Oh!" she cried in a stricken manner, and then firmly, "Take care what you're saying."
"I'll put what I like in my hair. I'm an old maid because you made me one."
"You're a ridiculous sight."
"No more than you and your silly religions. You've spoiled everything for me."
Mrs. Weatherby gave a throaty laugh. "Spoiled everything, have I? And where would you be without me, pray? You'd have nothing except for me. You'd be a pauper."
In Miss Fosdick a hundred respectable New England ancestors rose and ran riot. "You. Everybody laughs at you. Nobody ever comes here but a lot of old women who want a meal." She choked and began to cry hysterically. "And a lot of old fools with silly religions."
Suddenly with a groan Mrs. Weatherby collapsed full length on the floor. She lay there crying out, calling upon Heaven to witness the ingratitude of this creature she had protected for so long. Miss Fosdick understood only fragments. "After I'm dead you'll remember. . . . After all I've done for you."
But Miss Fosdick felt suddenly seasick and ran from the room. The screams followed her along the corridor until she was in her own room with the door bolted behind her.
Sobbing, she seated herself at the dressing-table. There was a light in her eye. At last the suppressed hatred of twenty years was satisfied. She had told Aunt Henrietta what she thought of her. The feeling was like a fresh cool breeze. It was all over. She was free . . . free with one hundred and thirty-two lira in the world, the savings of twenty years of slavery. Free, and there was nothing she could do, not even sew properly. But she was free. She could scrub floors. She was free.
In all the confusion the sprig of jasmine had come loose from her hair and had fallen into the V that revealed her plump white throat. She took it out and laid it on the table. Then when she had grown more calm, she regarded herself in the ancient mirror and fell to trying new ways of doing her hair. She couldn't go out into the world dressed in the ridiculous fashion that she had always commanded. Her hands trembled. She was afraid of herself and of this madness which had swept her without any effort of will into revolt. This was a strange woman who looked out of the mirror at her. Who was she? This creature born of the fires of hatred.
Then she let her hair fall down. It reached to her waist. Her hair, she told herself, had always been her great beauty even as a girl. She could not cut it.
Presently she rose feeling weak and shaken, and after drinking half a bottle of Fiuzzi water, went to the window for air. Far down below in the valley she could see a tiny light moving through the olive trees toward the stalled motor. Presently it reached the road, the lights of the motor flared up. There was a sudden wild impatient roar and the car shot away toward Brinoë. As the lights disappeared around a curve of the valley, she suddenly felt seasick once more. The romance was gone and with it all the intoxication of her wild hysterical outburst. She was an old maid with one hundred and thirty-two lira in the world. She had not even a friend and there was no work that she could do. The fascinating Duque de Fuenterrabía would never even think of her again. She was quite certain now. The twenty years had driven her insane at last.
For an hour Mrs. Weatherby lay on the floor waiting for Miss Fosdick to return and beg forgiveness. When at last the floor had grown impossibly hard and there seemed to be little chance of her companion coming back, she raised herself, and picked up the brush and the candle. Then for the first time she saw the card of Oreste Valmente, Duque de Fuenterrabía and Marqués de Santoban. Twice she read it through with awe and then thrust it reverently into the side of the blotchy mirror. Doing her thin hair into a knot, she walked down the corridor to Miss Fosdick's room, where a line of light showed beneath the door. For a moment she stood thoughtfully and then, knocking gently, she called out in the voice of a dove, "Gertrude. Gertrude dear."
There was no answer and she called again, "Gertrude. Gertrude."
Again only silence.