The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (18 page)

It was not until I was seated next to Mary on the sofa, listening to Flossie chatter on instead of making coffee, that I realized, with no small degree of shock, that I was not—of course I was not, what could I have been thinking—I was not the man she was seeking. How easy, how easy it was, to slip. Had the woman not mentioned my employer’s name to Flossie? Not made it clear the writer she sought?

Isn’t that marvellous?
Flossie was saying to me.

The backs of my hands prickled with a cold sweat.

I scarcely know—

Mary is, what did you say your last name was?

I didn’t,
Mary began.
But—

And you
, Flossie said, patting my knee,
you sly fox. All this time, letting me call you Arthor.

I laughed nervously.

What have you got to say for yourself ?
Flossie demanded.

In fact—

A pen name, of all things. Mary says you’ve got hundreds.

Not hundreds,
Mary corrected.

Are you really so famous? Do you know
, Flossie said, turning to Mary,
I didn’t even know he was a writer until this morning? I even thought he might be making it all up, you know, trying to impress me or something. Yes, that’s right. You’ve been a very naughty boy, Arthor. Or should I call you, oh goodness, I’ve already forgotten. Mary, what did you say the name was?

I excused myself before we’d even had coffee, sick at my growing deceit, Flossie frowning after me as I ascended the stairs.

An hour later, I was in the kitchen, scraping food into a bowl for the cats, feeling rattled still over the encounter, when I heard someone at the door. I started, turned to see the latch twist, the door open. I scarcely knew whom to expect.

It was Flossie.

She stood there in the front hall, staring coldly in at me. I stepped forward, repressing the urge to usher her back out. I glanced quickly toward my employer’s door. I hardly expected him to emerge, but even so.

Flossie stood waiting, it seemed, to be invited inside. Gone was her sparkle. I thought at first she was only angry at my premature departure, but it seemed more than that. She stood as if holding herself in restraint. I noticed there was a plate in her hands. She looked around the apartment with obvious interest before settling her eyes back upon me, her gaze hard.

I’ve brought cake,
she said.

I set the pot I was holding onto the counter.

Why don’t we go down to your apartment
, I suggested.
It’s so much more pleasant.

Flossie crossed the room, as if she hadn’t heard, her heels sharp on the linoleum, and set the cake heavily upon the table. I cast my eyes again to the hall behind her, the closed study door. She followed my gaze.

Might I have a knife?
she said, and seated herself firmly at the table.

I confess I deliberated, given her murderous tone. She appeared to be wound, as they say, rather tight.

What did you think of your admirer?

She seemed very pleasant.

She didn’t seem … crazy, to you?

She seemed quite sensible. Why do you ask?

No reason.
She stabbed the knife into the cake so forcefully the plate slid dangerously toward the edge of the table. She yanked it back.

We had an interesting conversation. After you left. Mary and I.

Did you?

Yes.

She flipped a slice of cake onto a plate and smacked it down on the table.

Aren’t you going to offer me coffee?

I put the kettle on to boil, all the time glancing nervously out into the hall. Flossie watched me carefully.

You seem … ,
I began.

What?

I cleared my throat.
Angry?

Just surprised
, she said. She stabbed the knife into the cake again.

Oh?

Mary certainly seemed to know a good deal about you.

Is that right.

From some press club or something, some amateur something association. I can’t remember the name.

Indeed?

Yes. She told me quite a bit. She said, for instance, you live here. With your aunt. That’s how she found you here. From the amateur press whatever membership.

Yes, I told you that.

No, you said you were staying with her. Just for a while. Just to take care of things, until she is well.

And that is true.

Mary said you live here.

I forced out a small laugh.
Well, then, Mary must be right. Come now, Flossie, I don’t even know the woman.

But she knows you. It seems you’re quite famous. In certain circles. Weird circles. Horror, I mean. Or, whatever you call it.

I wouldn’t say that,
I said, uneasily. I thought of my employer, possibly listening through the wall. I wished desperately that she would lower her voice.

Oh, yes. Quite a bit is known about you. You have quite a following.

Is that so.

And anyway, what should I even call you?

Call me Arthor, of course, as you always have.

The kettle screamed and I plucked it off the range.

And another thing, for instance, another thing Mary happened to mention, is that you are married. That’s another thing.

I tipped the kettle, sloshing boiling water out over my shoes.

You needn’t look so startled
.

I set the steaming kettle back carefully on the range.

Is it true?

Flossie—

I thought you were different
, she said, looking at me steadily.

I wanted to say,
We are, none of us, different
.

Coffee
, she demanded, and swiped at her eyes, though they were dry.

I poured the water and brought the coffee. Flossie reached out and sloshed it into her cup before it had even brewed. She lifted it scalding to her lips.

So tell me about her, then.

About?

Your wife. This Sonia.

I stared.
Sonia?

Oh, don’t be stupid. Tell me about your wife. Is it true you are married?

I …

Mary said you are married but not living together. She didn’t know why. Is that true?

I don’t know what to say—

Say the truth
.

What was the truth? I had no idea.

Keep your voice down
, I said instead.

She looked astonished, then furious.

And why should I keep my voice down? Who should hear me, your aunt?

She’s not here. I told you that.

Are you married?

Flossie, please.

Answer me.

Yes
, I said, in a low voice, casting my eyes down the hall.
Yes. I’m married.

It was out. I’d told her. And I might have told her all of it, everything, the truth and not a version of it, but all at once she was on her feet.

My god
, she said,
she’s here. Your wife. Isn’t she. Has she been here the whole time? All this time?

Before I could stop her, she was out in the hall, calling,
Hello, I’d love to meet you, Mrs. Crandle, Sonia. I’ve brought a lovely damned lemon cake.

I had the eerie, awful vision of a door opening, and Jane stepping darkly through. Who on earth was Sonia?

I grabbed Flossie by the arm, feeling her skin pinch between my fingers, but she wrenched free and made for the door at the end of the hall.

Ah
, she cried.
Is she here?

She grasped the latch. With a cry, I stepped forward and pulled the door shut with a sharp smack.

What are you hiding from me?

I pulled her back down the hall toward the apartment door.

She isn’t here
, I said.
She isn’t. I haven’t seen her. It’s been—

Flossie lifted her hand, pressed her fingers to my mouth, fiercely. I flinched. I’d thought she was going to slap me.

Don’t
, she said angrily.
Don’t. I know. All right? You don’t owe me anything. I know that. I know. It’s too old-fashioned, to think that way. And not free at all
.
Right?

I’m sorry
, I said. I was.

It’s the lying,
she said,
that really bothers me.
She turned from me then, angrily, her hand on the latch.
You needn’t have lied, Arthor.

I know that
, I said.

3

I woke in the night from terrible dreams, shaking, as though I would retch. I rose and went to the window, feeling a chill the weather alone could not account for. It seemed all was crumbling. I had gone down twice to the foyer to rap at Flossie’s door, but she was either not home or she did not answer. The house seemed darker again, sadder, without the certain knowledge of Flossie’s brightness somewhere in it.

Outside, a storm was dying. The rain had ceased, though the wind was still up. Across the hedge, the boarding house glowed warmly. I imagined the boy there, James, seated near a flickering hearth, staring into the flames with that pale, otherworldly gaze, a cat curled purring in his lap. I had not seen any of them in days, and I wondered if perhaps the man Baxter had found a job, if they had moved on.

I was just about to turn away from the window when I saw her again, the girl.

There, in the garden, in the moving grasses, she stood. In all that wild motion, she was herself unmoving, utterly still, in a pale nightdress, the hem dragging heavily in the wet, her face upturned in the broken moonlight, staring with cold intensity at my attic window. But it was not Flossie; it was no woman.

It was a child.

I stepped unconsciously backwards in the force of its terrible, dead stare, my heart pounding. But just as soon as I’d glimpsed her, she was gone.

I shivered where I stood at the window, and raised a cold hand to the glass. The print from my sweating palm remained a moment, ghostly, then evaporated, was gone.

Four

1

We do not always meet life directly. We turn aside, let it strike us on the cheek. I thought of my other life sometimes with a kind of horror, as of something unstoppable, something unnatural, to which I was still hurtling, or which was still hurtling toward me, sideways, just out of the line of my vision.

It was two years ago last December, in the week before Christmas. Molly was yet an infant, not quite three. All across Boston, candles glowed in small-paned windows, pine smoke cut the air, snow fell. There was a commitment I had at my workplace—all right, it was a party, as Jane insisted. A Christmas party. Molly was ill. Some minor ailment, congestion, fever, that sort of thing. Nothing serious, certainly. Jane had come down with the same. She had been ill with it a good while, I recall, and I had begun to wonder, I’m ashamed to admit it, if she was being willfully ill. Things were rocky, then. Jane was lonely. I worked long hours. Someone had to pay the bills, and even then it was already not easy, the economy in a downward slide. We argued, often. She infuriated me. I was weary.

Then, this commitment, this … party. I was in the bedroom, fussing with a black silk tie, smoothing pomade through my hair, adjusting the tie again, too short, too long. But I had to go. I really could not get out of it. It was scarcely a matter of choice.

Assuming what I judged a suitable air of reluctant obligation, I smoothed my jacket and stepped into the sitting room.

Jane was on the sofa in the shabby dressing gown she favoured. Chenille, she called it. I thought it a bedspread. She had not washed her hair in some time and wore it pinned up untidily at the back of her neck. She did not bathe as much as she might; when I kissed her she smelled of onion peel, soured milk. Molly rolled feverishly in her lap.

Jane looked up at me in shock. I was instantly annoyed.

I really cannot get out of it
, I said, adjusting my tie again.
A work thing. You know how it is around there these days. Swinging axes. If you’re not looking, you’ll get it in the back of the neck.

You’re going,
she said,
to that party?

It’s hardly a party.

Just then headlights pulled up in front. One of my coworkers—all right, it was the daughter of my boss—who’d offered to give me a ride, being aware Jane and I did not own an automobile.

Who is that?
Jane asked, peering out between the curtains.

Well, don’t stare, will you
.

I said it rather sharply, I confess.