Quiet Dell: A Novel (17 page)

“Yes’m.”

“Did you question . . . letting them leave with Pierson, when you had not heard from Mrs. Eicher in over a week, except the one letter, saying he was coming for them?”

“I thought it surprising he appeared so sudden, so early, and let himself in without waking us. But he spoke for the two of them.”

Emily looked at Abernathy, quizzical. “What made you think so?”

Calmly, she smoothed her hair. “He paid me exactly what was owed, to the penny, without my asking, and a week forward.”

“A week forward? I see. He paid you in cash?”

“In bills, from her billfold.”

Emily felt a cold point tighten behind her eyes. “From Mrs. Eicher’s billfold?”

Abernathy nodded. “A red leather billfold. She paid a deposit, was when I saw it before.”

“In her hands.”

“Of course, in her hands, ma’am.”

“And why would Pierson have her billfold? Women keep such things very close to them, don’t they? And if she were furnishing a house in another place—”

“Well, she wouldn’t be doing that with her money. She told me not to mention . . . her situation, the mortgages on her house. I didn’t think about it that morning, I was so busy getting the breakfast. He pulled me aside and gave me the money, very quick, and I was dishing out the food, with the little one underfoot, packing a basket with whatever was cold, from the icebox—and then the
older girl coming back, when I hadn’t known she’d gone. She wasn’t sensible, she wasn’t allowed out by herself, anyone will tell you—”

“You mean Grethe? She went out? Where?”

“She came into the kitchen, where they were all eating, and said, ‘I went to the bank.’ ‘You did what?’ I said. She looked . . . confused, all teary—and he took her down the hallway to talk to her.”

The note, at the bank. “Did you hear what he said?”

“No. The children were talking about Quiet Dell, a farm, a pony. Then he was calling for them, and they were gone.”

“To Quiet Dell,” Emily said, “in West Virginia?”

“I suppose, in West Virginia.”

“What do you mean, they were gone?”

“The boy had taken the basket—the little one had packed it so full, she couldn’t lift it—to the porch, and I heard them in the front room. I was washing dishes in the kitchen, running the water, thinking I would pack their bags. I had told the boy—”

“Hart.”

“Yes, to get their suitcases. He, Mr. Pierson, said they’d likely be back in a week, and told me to fasten up the dog, to stop it rushing about. I said what about their things, and he said they’d buy clothes on the way, and toys, and ice cream. I heard him saying this, in the hallway, with the children cheering. So they didn’t even dress; they weren’t dressed for travel. The younger ones were wearing their pajamas. And he gave me no instructions. He’d paid up that day, July second, forward to July ninth. It seemed I was to stay in the house, only to take care of the dog.” She paused. “Then the dog was hurt, somehow.”

Emily looked down, and the dog jumped easily into her lap, as though aware it was an object of discussion. “Hurt? But didn’t you say the dog was fastened up?”

“Shut up in the pantry. Yes. It’s a swinging door, very heavy, but somehow it worried the door and squeezed through. Raced past me like a shot. I had the feeling it rushed the front door and hit the door as it shut. It lay in the middle of the rug, gasping. And they were gone. The car was gone.”

In the silence, Emily heard a faint sound, exactly in front of her. “What was that?” she said. “Did you hear it?”

Abernathy only looked confused.

“Did you hear that sound?” Emily pointed. “There. Do you see it? On the floor.”

Abernathy picked up something small and held it to the light. “It’s a tiny nail,” she said, “or a pin, but not a dress pin.”

“I heard it fall,” Emily said, “but from where?”

Abernathy came closer, squinting, it seemed, at the breast pocket of Emily’s Oxford shirt, but she was looking at the dog in Emily’s arms. She touched the dog’s collar, turning it round. “It’s here, see, from his collar. One of the pins holding the letters to his collar.”

Emily looked. Four small metal squares were fastened on the dog’s leather collar.
D U T Y,
they read, in capital letters. “Oh.” She took the pin from Abernathy and, not knowing what else to do with it, put it in her shirt pocket. She felt, her hand brushing her blouse, the fullness of her breast under the white cotton cloth, and the thud of her heart. “I’m not clear,” Emily said. “You say the dog was injured?” She was thinking that she must write; she must take notes properly.

“Running to catch them up, to go with them.”

Emily rubbed the dog’s ears, and put one hand flat against its barrel chest. “Were you hurt, Duty?” The dog looked up, and she saw two short, parallel lines of scar in the short hair of its throat. “Was he bleeding then, from the mouth, or ears—”

“No, from there, where you see that scar. A swollen kind of wound. I wasn’t about to move an animal. I went over to Mrs. Verberg’s, the neighbor. She came back with me and we put a thickness of clean sheet in the dog’s basket, that basket, there by the stove, and moved it near. The dog was breathing a bit easier and lay in the basket, looking pitiful. Mrs. Verberg said to get the disinfectant, and she put a cloth just under, and poured iodine over the wound.”

“Ouch,” said Emily. “I’m sure that hurt, Duty.”

The dog, hearing its name, turned its ears and held still.

“So it stayed in the basket a day or two, then began walking about the house, out to the front and the back, in and out. On patrol, Mrs. Verberg said. I saw to the wound twice a day, cleaned it. It healed, but after, the dog didn’t bark, only makes that sound you heard.”

“Duty, do you mind? Let’s have another look.” She turned the dog’s head toward her, and carefully felt the scar. “It’s very regular, the scar, like the lines of, oh, the side of a shovel.” Emily put the dog on the floor, and it went to its basket and lay down, its head on its paws, and gazed at them inquiringly.

Abernathy sat down. “Or the edge of a door, sharp and hard enough, if it smashed just so.”

Or the tip of a man’s shoe, Emily thought. Perhaps the side of his shoe. No, the tip, cutting the skin at that angle. The dog went after him when no one saw, and he kicked it hard enough to break its neck. Except it was this thick-necked little terrier—but he silenced the witness. She wrote in her notebook,
Vicious. Dog would know him
. “So, after a week, you went back to your own home? With the dog?”

“What was I to do? The neighbors wouldn’t take him—Mrs. Verberg has cats and Mrs. Breedlove is allergic. I can’t have pets, with my hours. I’ve no fondness for animals, but I couldn’t just have the dog destroyed. I had a case, then another, near my own building, and I’ve kept the dog this long, but no longer.”

“You took good care of him, Mrs. Abernathy. You may even have saved his life.”

“It wouldn’t be the first I’ve saved,” she said stiffly.

Emily remembered Malone’s comment—a nurse tending those privileged to die in their own beds. Hopelessly grim, this woman. Emily saw before her William Malone’s brown eyes, and his gaze that seemed to enfold her, and felt wildly alive. “I do like animals,” she told Abernathy. “I grew up on a farm, partly.”

“Whereabouts, ma’am?”

“Iowa.”

“Not so far, then. Perhaps, someone there—”

“No, I’ll take him. I work long hours and I wasn’t looking for a dog, but then, sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for, do we?”

Abernathy looked through her. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

He told the bank manager he was not to be disturbed; he would work through lunch. He locked the door, and sat in the chair in which she’d sat. He felt the warmth of her, for she’d left not three minutes ago.

Emily Thornhill. The name rang in his mind like a bell.

He’d never experienced anything remotely similar. It had to do with terrible things, things he referred to in his mind as “the children” that had suddenly, in the past week, opened like a chasm under him. Words he remembered telling her,
urgency, desperate people, saved the children,
were vast and deep as lagoons within him. And the thought of Emily Thornhill, nearing those depths, finding the dark in which the children lay, and he’d no doubt she would find them, and stand near what remained of them—

It was too late now, not to find them. They remained in his mind’s eye forever and he’d thought there was no one, no one, to whom he could speak of them. He was fifty-one years old. He was married, yet he was alone. Emily Thornhill had said
ride like the wind,
and he recognized, inside her words, like a call to prayer, the daily knell of dark chimes that rang in his blood. He’d thought it was too late for him; there was no time, no hope, no way but to travel forward alone, desirous, unanswered.

She had said
stand in the rooms,
and then stood so close he might have crushed her to him.

Catherine would not know; she would not care. He’d always employed a housekeeper, but five years ago had engaged a nurse-companion, his groomsman’s wife, Mary. The couple lived on the property and their children were grown. Mary’s only duties were to watch over Catherine, sleeping or waking, cook her food and entice her to eat, bathe and dress her and never frighten her, take her for walks in the garden, sit with her by the pond, read to her. Catherine had loved her piano; she had played for him. Now she only sat, touching one key and another. He wished that Mary might play for Catherine, but a locksmith’s daughter did not receive that sort of education. He was fortunate though, very fortunate; Mary was kindly, energetic, Catherine’s constant: Catherine’s sister some days, her mother other days, or her unnamed friend. He thought of them now as almost one entity—Mary and Catherine—and was at peace in separate moments, when he did not think of the future, about what would happen when Catherine got worse. He believed Mary’s presence slowed the progress of the disease; he comforted himself that his wife was not in pain; she was not anxious; she was not distressed.

She did not remember him, or their history or their concerns, for she did not remember herself. Her room was her sanctuary; Mary put her to bed there at 9:00
P.M
., like a child, and wakened her at seven. He’d moved a bed and armoire to the upstairs library, a comfortable room, and used the bath across the hall. He had entered his own forgetfulness, by design. Now he must think of Catherine and himself, for he must describe his life to Emily Thornhill. He must justify the change about to happen, with Emily and through her.

He’d met Catherine in Chicago, where he was then living, establishing First National with investors who were longtime business associates. A society benefit for Catholic Charities. She played Bach, and was assured, lovely, sophisticated, an engaged, intellectual Catholic. They toured Italy and the Vatican on their wedding
trip. She had let him believe she was his age, a “fact” confided by a friend, but confessed on their first anniversary that she was actually thirty-five, five years his senior—a ruse for which she did not apologize. He might have changed his mind, when they were so perfectly suited! She knew he wanted children, as did she, very much. And they would have them. But they did not. They had dinner parties those first years, musical evenings with her friends, memberships in Chicago museums and clubs; they traveled. She continued to study music, played for a time with a violinist and cellist, offering concerts in support of charitable causes. He invested in real estate, a game of sorts, worked tirelessly to establish the Park Ridge branch, now the primary branch, of First National, and rode, weekends then, his own roan stallion, for he’d purchased the Park Ridge house and acreage for the fine stable and paddock, the fenced pasture.

Catherine was afraid of horses, a fear she had not stated. She consented, surely ten years ago now, to take his arm and walk to the stable, to meet Traveller, the first thoroughbred he purchased at Saratoga, not to race but to ride. To adore, Catherine said. The horse, less than a year old, was stalled and quiet, and William placed her hand on the beautiful arched neck. He remembered the large, depthless eye turned toward them, like a sphere that knew all, and the lush black eyelashes. Catherine cried out and fainted. She made light of it that evening, when he asked for god’s sake that she tell him of any anxiety, and not agree to anything, no matter how trivial, about which she had any reservation at all. She said she was tired, had perhaps forgotten to eat. The embarrassed housekeeper admitted that Mrs. Malone often ate little. Though her plate might be empty, she hid the food, wrapped carefully in napkins, behind the canned goods in the pantry, or in the laundry, even in the piano bench. And she was very much disturbed by insects. She heard a wasp, lately, touching against the window glass, the shade, the wall, but there was no wasp.

In time she asked that they not go to theaters, concerts, restaurants. She did not like crowds. She preferred to eat at home with
him, and then in her own room, alone, and now, with Mary, for Mary must feed her, like a child. Even five years ago, she was afraid to go outside, particularly afraid of the stable, of the walk to the stable across the grounds, yet she talked to him of Traveller repeatedly, nearly daily; he had saved Traveller from the confusion and danger and bitter contests of the track, the races, from the bells and the guns fired in the air. How good and peaceful here, with him. He kept his horses as they aged, pastured them, named every horse Traveller, so as not to confuse her, ostensibly, but he grew to love the name, and the fact that two and then three horses answered to it, like a good group of brothers. He rode nearly daily now, early mornings, afternoons on weekends, aware that the horse galloping under him shared the name of the favored mount of a defeated Civil War general, a man who’d fought a long, losing campaign out of loyalty, betraying, to a degree, his own ideals. William Malone had not believed in half-lived lives, restricted efforts, repressed desires. He understood them now.