The Withdrawing Room (12 page)

“Because it’s in rags, that’s way.”

“So is mine.”

“Yeah, we got to get you something decent. It’s bad for the image, you sitting in front of that silver urn with holes in your underpants. What if there was an earthquake or something? But anyway; yours was good quality to start with. Hers is nothing but junk. And how many dresses you ever see her wear?”

“Why, I haven’t the faintest idea. I never kept track. She seems to have a different outfit about one night in three.”

“Seems to, right. But you take away all them scarves and flowers and beads and stuff, and what would you have?”

“A plain black dress, I suppose. She always wears black.”

“You said it, honey. One plain black long dress for evening and if that didn’t come from Filene’s Basement then I’m Queen Liliuokawhoozis. And one plain black short dress for daytimes and one plain black coat and one pair of plain black leather pumps and one pair of black vinyl boots and a drawer full of fake flowers and cheap scarves and five-and-ten jewelry, and one pair of nylons and some knee-highs that have been darned real nice, and anybody that takes the trouble to sew up a run in a pair of forty-nine-cent knee-highs—”

“Mariposa, you’ve been snooping through her dresser drawers!”

“Honey, you got class. Charles has got class; We get too much class around here, this place is going to fold up flatter than a four-flusher’s wallet. Me, I got no class. I never could afford it. And believe me, honey, that lady can’t afford none, either. She’s not behind in her rent, I hope?”

“Why, no. She pays right on the dot, like everybody else.”

“How?”

“Hands it to me in a little envelope. Oh, you mean does she pay by check or whatever? Actually she always pays cash. Come to think of it, she’s the only one who does. Everyone else writes me a check. Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It sure does to me,” said Mariposa. “You start a checking account, you need money to start it with, right? You don’t keep a big enough balance, you pay a service charge for every check, right? You add up a few service charges, you got the price of another pair of them forty-nine-cent knee-highs you can wear under that jazzy black dinner dress nobody’s going to know the difference, right?”

“But, Mariposa—”

“Don’t go buttin’ me, honey. I figure she’s got a little savings account someplace. That way she gets maybe a buck or two interest on her money instead of paying out. She takes out a week’s rent, she hands it to you, she eats what you give her, she doesn’t spend a cent more than she has to anyplace else. She keeps on doing her dance of the seven veils, maybe she can kid you along for a few more weeks she’s the society dame she makes herself out to be. But anytime she don’t come across with the rent on time, you better have a sick aunt who needs that room in a hurry.”

“Really, Mariposa! I’d hardly make a sick aunt climb two nights of stairs.”

“Then you got a well aunt. Look, maybe what you better do is come down with a sore throat and let Charles handle it. I guess you never had much experience at giving anybody the bum’s rush, huh?”

“But I like Mrs. Sorpende,” wailed Sarah. “I like her the best of the lot, except—well, of course I’d known Mr. Bittersohn before.”

“You’d known Mr. Quiffen before, too, honey. I haven’t noticed you hanging out any black crape for him.”

“Maybe you don’t see as much as you think,” Sarah snapped back. That was as close as she’d ever got to being cross with Mariposa. “If you have all that surplus energy to work off, I wish you’d do something about that front hallway instead of counting the holes in people’s underwear. It’s always a mess these days, I can’t think why. We’ve never had this problem till the past day or so.”

“It’s all them visitors Mr. Hartler has sashaying in and out all the time. Don’t even wipe their feet and act like they done you a favor letting you open the door for them. Mr. Hartler may be one of your fine old Boston gentlemen but he’s sure got some mighty peculiar friends.”

“They’re not his friends,” Sarah corrected. “They’re just people trying to sell him things that are supposed to have come from that Iolani Palace he’s always talking about.”

“Then how come they all come in empty-handed and go out carrying bundles?”

“Because they’ve left their pieces to be authenticated and he’s had to let them know they’re not what he’s looking for and would they please come back and take them away. I suppose they’re all cross and disappointed, and that’s why they don’t bother to be polite.”

“That’s no excuse for bad manners.” said Mariposa huffily. “Specially not in a high-class joint like this. Charles says inability to cope with frustration is a sign of immaturity. How does that grab you? Anyway, I guess that’s why Mr. Hartler told me not to bother cleaning his room. He’s afraid I’ll pinch some of those genuine fake antiques, I bet.”

“I’m sure he thinks nothing of the sort. It’s just that he’s so wrapped up in this business about the Iolani Palace that nothing else seems important to him. If Mr. Hartler doesn’t want us dusting things that don’t belong to him, that’s understandable, but we’re certainly going to keep the room clean. Otherwise we might start having earwigs and cockroaches and heaven knows what. I think I’d better have a little chat with him about that. I’m also going to tell him to make sure his callers wipe their feet. After all, this is a private house. Semi-private, anyway. Now I have to go to the bank and deposit the rent checks, and pick up Aunt Emma’s order at Boston Music Company, which I forgot to do yesterday, and buy whipping cream for that pudding we’re going to serve tonight. Anything else?”

They did their heavy marketing on Saturdays when Charles was available to carry the bags, trundling off in the Studebaker to a run-down neighborhood store Mariposa knew of where the food was a lot cheaper. However, there was always something to be got at the last minute so the neighborhood grocers got their share of the Kelling business as they always had. Mariposa mentioned one or two items, Sarah put on her coat and left the house.

She crossed Beacon and cut through the Common to the handsome building that had housed Boston Music Company years before either she or her parents had been born. She was walking slowly, keeping an eye peeled for a possible glimpse of Miss Mary Smith, when she spied a commanding figure in a black coat, a plum-colored velvet turban and scarf, and plain black boots strolling some distance ahead of her. Sarah had no conscious intention of shadowing her boarder, but she found herself altering her path slightly to keep Mrs. Sorpende in view. It soon became obvious that she was making a beeline for the women’s public rest room.

That was odd. No, perhaps it wasn’t. Mrs. Sorpende was, after all, a middle-aged woman who had drunk three cups of coffee with her breakfast. But she’d only just left the house. Sarah had heard her go out while she herself was collecting her purse and gloves. Might Mrs. Sorpende have been taken with sudden cramps or something? What was a landlady’s responsibility in such a circumstance?

One couldn’t very well enter the rest room, too, and catch so dignified a person in what was more than likely to be an undignified situation. On the other hand, one didn’t like to go away and leave her in possible distress. Maybe one should simply hover at a discreet distance and wait to see how Mrs. Sorpende looked when she came out. Sarah stationed herself behind a convenient Ulmus procera (Boston Common trees wear erudite name tags) and lurked.

M
RS. SORPENDE DID NOT
come out. One or two others did. Sarah saw a child of fourteen or so, who ought to be in school at this hour, slouching from the building in a pair of too-tight blue jeans, a fuzzy fake fur jacket so short that it might indeed lead to severe kidney disturbances, and backless mules with fantastically high heels she didn’t have the remotest idea how to manage. The girl was puffing inexpertly at a cigarette and made Sarah want to cry out of pity for her.

There was a tweedy woman who tied two afghan hounds to the doorknob by their leashes and made a fast trip in and out. Right behind her Sarah caught sight of a black coat emerging and sighed with relief for her own feet were getting cold with standing. However, it was on a stooped old woman who had a ratty scarf tied over her head and a pair of broken-out red sneakers on her feet. She was carrying a large plastic trick-or-treat bag that must date from many Halloweens ago. Another amateur ecologist, no doubt.

And still there was no sign of Mrs. Sorpende. By now Sarah felt she had good reason to be concerned. Indelicate though she might be, she walked over and went in.

The place was surprisingly clean, and totally devoid of life.

“Well, you idiot!” she said aloud.

Had she really seen Mrs. Sorpende come in here? Of course she had, she wasn’t blind. Had the woman left by another entrance? No, there wasn’t one. Then Mrs. Sorpende must simply have come out and slipped quickly around to the other side while Sarah’s attention was momentarily diverted by that pathetic child in the fuzzy jacket or the old woman who might have been Miss Smith but wasn’t. God willing, the boarder hadn’t happened to notice young Mrs. Kelling making a fool of herself behind that elm tree.

Feeling very cross with herself, Sarah went along about her business. It was one of those days when nothing goes right. She had a long wait at the music store while some odd mix-up about Aunt Emma’s order for the parts to
Cost Fan Tutti
was straightened out. She got into the wrong line at the bank as one always does, and after having stood on one aching foot then the other for some while, found she’d been blessed with a trainee teller who could not cope with the complexities of depositing five rent checks and one trust fund allowance and handing Sarah back the little extra cash sum she allowed herself for emergencies.

The store she usually went to for cream was out of it, for some unexplained reason, so she had to go elsewhere and pay a good deal more. All in all she got back to the house far later than she’d meant to, and her temper was not sweetened by finding that she hadn’t brought her door key with her. She poked the bell, dropping Aunt Emma’s package in the process and scattering Mozart all over the vestibule. At last Mariposa came downstairs from the third floor where she’d been mopping bedrooms, and let her in.

“I thought you were going to clean up this hall,” was Sarah’s ungracious greeting.

“I did,” Mariposa protested. “I mopped and dusted and vacuumed as soon as you left.”

“Then somebody’s messed it up again in a big hurry. We simply can’t let this sort of thing go on. Is Mr. Hartler in his room now, do you know?”

“Yes, but he’s got somebody with him.”

“Somebody with muddy feet, no doubt. Stand guard here will you, and let me know the second he’s free. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

However, Sarah never got to the kitchen. As she was going down the long hallway that led past the dining room, she happened to look in. A woman she’d never seen before was coolly opening the china cupboard and taking out one of Great-grandmother Kelling’s Coalport vases.

All the resentments of that frustrating day, all the anger Sarah had been so carefully brought up to suppress, came surging out. She charged at that woman with a ferocity she’d never realized she could show, and snatched the vase from her hand.

“How dare you?”

The woman was not the least bit intimidated. “How dare I what? Look, I didn’t come here to be insulted. That’s not a bad piece. Reproduction, of course, but not bad. Tell you what, I’ll give you fifty dollars for the pair. What do you say?”

What Sarah said was, “Mariposa!” and she said it in a shriek.

The maid came running. “What’s the matter—madam?” she added hastily, seeing the stranger.

“Go put the night latch on the door,” Sarah ordered, “then come straight back here and help me count the silver.”

“Hey, just a minute,” yelled the strange woman. “You can’t hold me here against my will.”

“Can’t I?” Sarah was a trifle more collected now. “You entered this house against mine. How did you get in?”

“He opened the door for me, naturally. Your boss.”

“My what?”

Mr. Hartler must have heard the commotion, for he popped into the dining room, beaming as usual. His irate landlady wheeled to attack.

“Mr. Hartler, can you explain why I found this—this person rifling my china cabinet? She claims you let her in. Is that true?”

“Why, I suppose I must have, if she says so,” he replied. “Yes, I believe I do recall going to the door. But you see, I happened to have someone else with me at the time, so I—dear me, what did I do? I’m so excited, you see. This chap I have in my room now—”

“Mr. Hartler, I’m not interested in your excitement. I am demanding to know why you’re turning my house into a pigsty and letting strangers roam freely where they have no business to be.”

“Just a second,” interrupted the strange woman. “Whose place is this, anyway? Is she crazy, or what?”

Sarah got her answer in first. “I am Mrs. Alexander Kelling. This is my house and Mr. Hartler is my boarder. I’ve allowed him to carry on his—”

“Yes, yes,” the old man bubbled. “Mrs. Kelling has been most kind, most kind indeed. I’m afraid she finds me a dreadful old nuisance. Now, Mrs.—I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch your name—perhaps it might be better if you came some other time when we’re not quite so—er—preoccupied.”

“I should prefer that she not come at all,” said Sarah coldly. “She’s just offered me fifty dollars for a pair of my great-grandmother’s Coalport vases.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What a pickle. Mrs. Kelling, I do apologize most humbly. Most humbly indeed. Here, Mrs.—er—I’ll just show you to the door.”

“Hold it!” barked Mariposa. “We didn’t count the silver yet.”

“But surely—that is—”

“Mr. Hartler, take your visitor to the front hall and stay there with her until we finish here,” Sarah ordered. “As soon as we’ve made sure nothing is missing, we’ll come and release the night latch so she can leave. In the future, you must schedule your appointments far enough apart so that this sort of thing never happens again. You must also instruct your callers to leave their boots outside and quit using my oriental rug for an ashtray. I don’t know what sort of people you’re entertaining here, but if they can’t behave in a civilized manner, you’ll have to see them somewhere else. Have I made myself clear?”