There was a bike on the lawn, other signs of playthings. The birch trees in front never looked so fine as the elms. Different, all different.
And the Great Elm was gone. Like Lady, it had died piecemeal, branch by branch, haggard, lopsided, grotesque, pathetic. It had been felled at last by the Dutch blight. I remembered a time when I had thought that, like life, it would go on forever. I told the kids how we used to stand, three, four, five of us, trying to measure our own growth against it, to girdle with our outstretched arms and clasped hands its immense girth, feeling the scrape of bark against our cheeks as we leaned against it. "Gee, Dad, that must have been some tree," they said -- but after all it was only a tree.
Before dinner I took the kids out on the Cove. One of Teresa's cousins had a motor launch and I suggested going downriver. I shouldn't have. Hermitage Island was gone. It simply wasn't there at all, and from my reckoning the river had taken a different course entirely where it used to flow by both sides of the island. It was as if it had never been.
Gone, all gone.
Back at the Marini farm, things were different, too. Most of the acreage had been sold off for building lots; what remained was unfilled. Papa Marini was on easy street. Big, blustering Mama seemed smaller and quieter, though she cooked as much as ever. There were aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews and nieces and sisters and brothers, and I had trouble making out the faces I should have remembered. Ag came, and Rabbit, and it was good to see them. Rabbit got along very well with prosthetic devices, and Ag proudly showed off their boy and girl. Rabbit said that after we ate, he would take all the children to see the fat badger he'd recently gotten.
After dinner, on the excuse of going to the store for cigarettes, I went around the Green again, this time trying to scent out the strangenesses and differences. I went down to our old house and had another look. Poor old house, it was more ramshackle than ever. There appeared to be nobody home, so I walked down the drive, to see how Pa's fruit trees had grown. When I came around the side of the garage, I stopped and stared. The trees, four cherry, four pear, four quince, four plum, had been chopped down. The stumps remained, sticking up through the unmowed grass. I couldn't believe it. Who would cut down those trees, for what reason? I felt heartsick.
Gone. Changed.
Everything but --
Out on the street again, I saw Miss Berry sitting in her sun parlor. They said she was in her nineties. She saw me, adjusted her spectacles when I waved, but did not recognize me until I had rung her bell and she opened the door. I went in for a visit, and as the door closed behind me and she took me into the sun porch, the years seemed to gather me up and draw me backward. At Miss Berry's, nothing had changed. It was like a small time capsule of my childhood. Here were the same old pieces of furniture, the same rugs, the descendants of dogs I had known, even a canary in the cage -- not the same canary but a canary all the same -- even, as she herself pointed out, the same sansevieria in the blue pot.
Even Miss Berry herself seemed the same, her manner still brisk, her mind agile. She was humorous, kindly, interested. As we talked, I thought of all the years she had inhabited that sun parlor, that little piece of space leased for her lifetime, as if she had long ago staked it out for her old age.
We spoke of Gert Flagler, who had died during Truman's term, which Miss Berry regarded as a mercy; Gert had not seen the Republicans come to power again. We spoke of Eamon Harmon, who had once ridden a horse as Jared Ingersoll in the pageant, and who now rode a chair lift up and down stairs. Both he and his wife, Eva, had given up drinking and smoking. Thin Eva was now plump. We spoke of Colonel Blatchley, who had sold his house and was living in a retirement apartment down in Two Stone. We spoke of Mr. Keller, the druggist, who was dead, but whose son ran the business in a new store on the highway. We spoke of Lew, dead for twelve years, of Blue Ferguson, dead even longer, and of Elthea, who unfailingly sent a Christmas card each year, and at last we spoke of Lady. It was like leaving the best for last. The brick house, Miss Berry said, ' was very well maintained by Robert Marini. His wife, a pretty Polish girl, kept the gardens nicely and, having found the empty pedestal at the end of the brick walk, had replaced the gazing-globe with another one. Robert was amused by and friendly with the Old Guard, made his own wine, kept large dogs, and found the Great South Meadow good for hunting. Their four children were as bright and incorrigible as ever we had been. Of course, they hadn't known Lady Harleigh, but surely, she said, they had heard of her.
I suppose they must have. No one cares much now who are lovers, if they are black and white, mismatched by color, sex, age, or whatever one may miss by. Lady Harleigh loved her butler, was all that people said, not much more. Yet, if they knew it, there was more. Had been more, all along, the missing pieces. I got them now from Miss Berry, and if the pieces did not spell "Eternity," they furnished enough detail to complete the picture of a woman I had known as Lady Harleigh, friend of my youth.
As we reminisced about our old neighbor, Miss Berry slid effortlessly into her story. I did not have the feeling she was unburdening herself to me, but merely that close to the end of her long tenure she wanted to round out for me the story of Lady Harleigh's life. She was a comfortable old lady in her comfortable old parlor, telling me a tale. I listened.
"You have been fortunate in your friend. I should say our friend, for she was mine, too. She loved you very much, you know that -- you were like a son to her. If she were still alive, I wouldn't say anything, she wouldn't want me to. Still, Lady Harleigh can't always have her own way." She gave a little laugh of amusement, frail sounds that fluttered soft as a butterfly's wings. "You're a grown man now, but who knows what the future holds, eh?"
"Yes," I agreed, "who knows?"
"You know she was living over there with her houseman, of course. The whole town does. No matter, it was what she wanted. People never know what it takes to make another person happy. In any case, she led a trapped life. Trapped by that dreadful mother, Frau Strasser, trapped by that dreadful father-in-law, Ellsworth Harleigh. I know -- I was there."
I looked steadily at her and said nothing. She continued.
"Edward Harleigh was a ne'er-do-well from the beginning. If his father didn't hate him, he knew well enough what sort of son he was raising. There was one thing he wanted before he died: an heir. It was an obsession with him, to see the family name carried on. When the lawyers advised him to draw up his last will, he gave Edward two choices: either to go his own way and be cut off, or to marry and have a child, in which case he and the wife would inherit equally.
"It was Mr. Harleigh who decided Edward should marry Lady. He'd seen her when she came to the house to help her mother fit dresses for Mrs. Harleigh. Took a shine to her, as you might say. He liked what he saw: a sensible, realistic girl, who could hold Edward in check, and with plenty of robust life in her to assure an heir. He'd seen enough of those watered-down girls with names and money and no milk in their paps. So he decided Edward must have Adelaide Strasser of Knobb Street.
"Lady, of course, made the mistake so many women do. She was sure she could change Edward, which of course adds up to plenty of self-delusion, nothing more. The thing was, she didn't really like Edward. All the stories about him frightened her. Folks were surprised she didn't jump to the bait right away, and that she avoided Edward every chance she got. So Mr. Harleigh had a talk with Mrs. Strasser, and those two got in cahoots. Oh, she was a tartar, I tell you. It didn't come out until after the old man was dead, but he'd settled a handsome trust fund on Mrs. Strasser for her getting Lady to marry Edward -- and I guess she earned the money, because it wasn't an easy job. But little by little, between them, they wore the poor girl down. Edward was given orders to court her, and the old woman wheedled and cajoled and nagged until Lady started going about with him. Edward was charming and handsome, and could be a nice boy if he put his mind to it. And there was the promise of money in the air; poor Lady, she'd gotten so tired of scrubbing floors, and doing beadwo
rk for her mother. So with Edward and the parents all pressing her, she said yes.
"So it's arranged that he takes her off on one of those overnight excursions, down to New York on a steamboat. But at Saybrook he got her off the boat and made them miss it. They stayed overnight at a hotel, and he managed to have his way with her, as the saying goes. And Lady wasn't one of those tramps from the River House, she had scruples. Why, he'd no sooner bring her home from a picnic, than there he'd be in the taproom with that Al Yager and Yonny Turpin from the feed store. There used to be a girl -- Elsie Thatcher was her name -- she worked the tables in the taproom. A nice girl, but not such a good one that she could resist Edward Harleigh. Old Mr. Harleigh got her run out of town for having a baby. Edward's baby. If Elsie'd been smart, she'd of fought for some money at least, but they sent the Constable with her to put her on the train at Lamentation, and that was the last anyone heard of Elsie.
"Edward had had a narrow escape, and the old man was furious, and if Edward didn't mend his ways, at least he darned them enough to fool Lady. They got married in a hurry. Went to Mexico on their honeymoon. When they got there, Edward informs Lady that she's pregnant. Edward, mind you. She'd been examined by that terrible Dr. Forbes, he was the Harleighs' doctor, and he didn't bother informing Lady, or even her mother, but told Mr. Harleigh instead. Now, there's a nice, small-town girl who doesn't know a lot about these matters, her mother's never told her about much, and here she is on her honeymoon, and she's already going to have a baby. They're to wait the birth out in Guadalajara and have the certificate date falsified, then pop up back home, showing the child all over Main Street as being just a reg'lar little fellow.
"Except the baby miscarried and died. Three days later Edward got her on a train back East, no one the wiser, but Mr. Harleigh's mad as a wet hen. They got back here and found that he'd picked out a house for them, the one across the Green; it's all furnished, and Lady never had a say in anything.
"But she was determined she was going to make Edward happy, and the old man, too. She had spirit, if nothing else. Naturally she didn't feel so well after losing the baby, and that's how I began looking after her. Mrs. Strasser came around a lot, kind of keeping her eye on the poor girl. Mr. Harleigh hadn't long to live, and he wanted that grandchild, preferably a boy, to have the name. Edward was more terrified of him than ever, but he went back to his wild ways soon enough, I can tell you, and Lady took the hindmost -- she'd just have to put up with it. He began frittering away his time on cars, and horses, and what-all he could find to keep him away from the house. He'd found out about the plot between his father and Mrs. Strasser, and he decided Lady was in on it, too, and he felt he'd been trapped. He came to hate poor Lady, who was just trying to do everything right by him.
"She urged him to get out from under the old man's thumb, to go somewhere else and get a job, but Edward wouldn't have any of it. And you don't get out from under Ellsworth Harleigh's thumb that easy. So they stayed. Mr. Harleigh ruled Edward, Mrs. Strasser ruled Lady, and between them the young couple did just as they were told.
"There was Lady, seeing Edward off in his Pope-Hartford auto in the morning, just like any other wife seeing her husband off to work, but he didn't go to work; he went to the City Club or the country club, and back drunk for dinner. Finally, she got pregnant again, and I was hired to look after her full time. I was there when he came home, drunk as usual, and she told him. He only laughed, saying he knew he had it in him, and that would hold the old bastard, meaning his father, of course. All Lady had to do was stay quiet and let the baby come, while Edward lolled around the River House, or he'd parade her around the Green so's Ruthie Sparrow and the others could see that there was going to be an heir at last. And each Sunday she was required to make an appearance at the Harleighs', where the old lady would instruct her in being a dutiful daughter-in-law, dutiful wife, and certainly a dutiful mother.
"Lady told me around that time that she knew she'd made a terrible mistake. She being Catholic, there's no hope of a divorce, even if the Harleighs would have permitted it. And if she leaves him, Edward knows he'll be cut off without a red cent. One afternoon she was waiting for him in the living room. He came home three sheets to the wind, as usual, and there was a terrible row. Edward was always angry in those days, but Lady had a temper, too -- the German in her, I expect. He slammed out of the house, and when I went in Lady said she'd offered to go away after the baby was born. He came back and practically dragged her out of the house, and later she told me he'd taken her to the Harleighs', where he'd made her repeat what she'd said about leaving. I was given orders to keep her upstairs and not let her out of my sight.
"So I moved into the house full time until the baby came. I brought her one of my pups, a little Yorkie I thought she'd like for company. Lady named him Bert, after Bert Lytell, an actor she'd been sweet on when she was younger. And Bert was good company for Lady, but when Edward came home he'd always have that dog locked up down in the cellar, and he threatened me more than once, I can tell you, saying not to let it upstairs again.
"I wasn't afraid of him. Nor of any of them, if it came to that, Harleigh or no. My family'd been in this town longer than they had, anyway, and my father had dealings with the Harleighs -- not to his profit, believe me. Even so, it wasn't hard to sympathize with Lady Harleigh, after what Edward did to that poor dog.
"One afternoon he surprised us -- he'd come home early from the country club -- we were upstairs, and little Bert was on the bed. He came in, weaving in the doorway, and he saw the dog. He grabbed me by the arm and pushed me from the room, then slammed the door. I thought he was going to murder poor Lady -- but it was the dog he was after. There were dreadful sounds, and then a fearful smell. He'd picked that poor little thing up and thrown it in the fire, and held it there with the poker, until -- oh, it's easy to hate a man who'll hurt a dumb animal like that, and I've hated even the thought of Edward Harleigh from that day.
"Pretty soon the door opens and he comes out. Lady comes after him with the same poker he'd used on the dog, and she caught him on the stairs. She hit him, and he struck her back, and she fell down to the bottom. Even then I might have been able to save the baby, but Edward wouldn't let me telephone for the doctor until he'd cleared the house of the burned smell and the evidence about the dog -- he didn't want anyone to know what he'd done. I did everything I could to help Lady, but by the time Dr. Forbes got there the baby was already slipping.
"After that, there wasn't any use of her trying. She was hurt bad, she lost her powers of speech, and when Edward enlisted and went off to France, I got Lady sent down to a place in Virginia, to recuperate. When she came back, she was talking again, and walking well enough, and Edward came home a hero, and I hoped things might get straightened out. They went off down South, but when they came back it was worse than ever. No one saw Lady, and it turned out Edward was keeping her a prisoner over there, but I didn't find this out until later. He was drinking worse than ever, and giving her all kinds of abuse.
"Then Lady took sick and I was called in again. There was an epidemic of what was called Spanish Influenza going round, and she'd caught it. She was a sick child, and I thought she'd never pull through. The house was a sty. Edward was sleeping across the hall, wouldn't go into her room. I got things cleaned up as best I could, and asked Dr. Forbes to keep me on the case. Lady was raving and practically mad. I was waiting for her to go into the crisis. She got worse day by day, but Edward didn't care. He took himself off to New York, and I stayed by Lady's bed until she came through. Sat there for three days and nights until she opened her eyes and I knew she was going to be all right."
She paused, and I thought she was going to get up and fix tea or make another interlude in her story, but she merely eased her back into the chair and looked at me. When she spoke again, I supposed it was some slight digression, the feeble rambling of an elderly person. Shaking her head, she said, "Cain killed Abel; we murder where we will or must." I only returned her
look, and she proceeded as if I had made an interjection after her last sentence. "We are only apes, after all," she said in an explanatory tone, "and which of us knows wrong from right?"
The question was obviously rhetorical; I made no answer.
Then Miss Berry said, "She killed him, you know."
Her look was even and candid, with a hint of wistfulness about it. I thought I had misunderstood something, and my wondering expression brought a rephrasing of the sentence.
"Lady killed Edward."
I was trying hard to understand, but was not succeeding. "She murdered him?"
"Yes. Adelaide Harleigh murdered her husband, Edward Harleigh." Thus it was put to me, and I had no reply. Miss Berry continued.
"It must have come out of the fever, the idea, for I'd caught mutterings of it in her delirium. When Edward got home, Lady's fever was broken, but she was still contagious. The afternoon Edward was due back, she was insistent about making all kinds of preparations, having me bathe her, having the mirror to fix her face, the brush to brush her hair, and she wanted the wrapper she'd worn on her wedding night, a sea-green wrapper with peacocks on it. That night when I got up for a glass of water, I saw her leaving her bedroom and going into Edward's. He did not put her out that night. He accepted her, and it was the death of him."
"How?"
"She made him make love to her."
"But Edward hated her, wouldn't have anything to do with her."
"Yes, but not that night. That night she managed him well enough."
I could see how it must have gone. Edward had always desired her, even though he hated her. He wanted that body. On the riverboat, on their honeymoon, after his return from France, even after Washington, he had used her. Edward coming back from New York, getting drunk downstairs, coming up, finding her -- alluring, irresistible. She opening her wrapper, inviting him to bed. Taking advantage of his lust, seducing him into death with kisses, fondlings, caresses, her lips against his, the disease given, microbes the murder weapon, hatred the motive.