II
It may be said, and with truth, that so far I have recorded littlebut subjective terror, possibly easily explained by my occupancy of anisolated house, plus a few unimportant incidents, capable of variousinterpretations. But the fear was, and is today as I look back, a realthing. As real--and as difficult to describe--as a chill, for instance.A severe mental chill it was, indeed.
I went upstairs finally to a restless night, and rose early, after onlyan hour or so of sleep. One thing I was determined on--to find out,if possible, the connection between the terror and the telephone. Ibreakfasted early, and was dressing to go to the village when I hada visitor, no other than Miss Emily herself. She looked fluttered andperturbed at the unceremonious hour of her visit--she was the soul ofconvention--and explained, between breaths as it were, that she had cometo apologize for the day before. She had hardly slept. I must forgiveher. She had been very nervous since her brother's death, and smallthings upset her.
How much of what I say of Miss Emily depends on my later knowledge, Iwonder? Did I notice then that she was watching me furtively, or is itonly on looking back that I recall it? I do recall it--the hall dooropen and a vista of smiling garden beyond, and silhouetted against thesunshine, Miss Emily's frail figure and searching, slightly upliftedface. There was something in her eyes that I had not seen before--asort of exaltation. She was not, that morning, the Miss Emily who ran afinger along her baseboards to see if we dusted them.
She had walked out, and it had exhausted her. She breathed in littlegasps.
"I think," she said at last, "that I must telephone for Mr. Staley, I amnever very strong in hot weather."
"Please let me call him, for you, Miss Emily." I am not a young woman,and she was at least sixty-five. But, because she was so small andfrail, I felt almost a motherly anxiety for her that morning.
"I think I should like to do it, if you don't mind. We are old friends.He always comes promptly when I call him."
She went back alone, and I waited in the doorway. When she came out, shewas smiling, and there was more color in her face.
"He is coming at once. He is always very thoughtful for me."
Now, without any warning, something that had been seething since herbreathless arrival took shape in my mind, and became--suspicion. Whatif it had been Miss Emily who had called me the second time to thetelephone, and having established the connection, had waited, breathinghard for--what?
It was fantastic, incredible in the light of that brilliant summer day.I looked at her, dainty and exquisite as ever, her ruchings fresh andwhite, her very face indicative of decorum and order, her wistful oldmouth still rather like a child's, her eyes, always slightly upturnedbecause of her diminutive height, so that she had habitually a look ofadoration.
"One of earth's saints," the rector had said to me on Sunday morning. "Agood woman, Miss Blakiston, and a sacrifice to an unworthy family."
Suspicion is like the rain. It falls on the just and on the unjust. Andthat morning I began to suspect Miss Emily. I had no idea of what.
On my mentioning an errand in the village she promptly offered to takeme with her in the Staley hack. She had completely altered in manner.The strain was gone. In her soft low voice, as we made our way to theroad, she told me the stories of some of the garden flowers.
"The climbing rose over the arch, my dear," she said, "my mother broughtfrom England on her wedding journey. People have taken cuttings from itagain and again, but the cuttings never thrive. A bad winter, and theyare gone. But this one has lived. Of course now and then it freezesdown."
She chattered on, and my suspicions grew more and more shadowy. Theywould have gone, I think, had not Maggie called me back with a grocerylist.
"A sack of flour," she said, "and some green vegetables, and--MissAgnes, that woman was down on her knees beside the telephone!--andbluing for the laundry, and I guess that's all."
The telephone! It was always the telephone. We drove on down the lane,eyed somnolently by spotted cows and incurious sheep, and all the wayMiss Emily talked. She was almost garrulous. She asked the hackman abouthis family and stopped the vehicle to pick up a peddler, overburdenedwith his pack. I watched her with amazement. Evidently this was Mr.Staley's Miss Emily. But it was not mine.
But I saw mine, too, that morning. It was when I asked the hackman toput me down at the little telephone building. I thought she put herhand to her throat, although the next moment she was only adjusting theruching at her neck.
"You--you have decided to have the second telephone put in, then?"
I hesitated. She so obviously did not want it installed. And was I tosubmit meekly to the fear again, without another effort to vanquish it?
"I think not, dear Miss Emily," I said at last, smiling at her drawnface. "Why should I disturb your lovely old house and its establishedorder?"
"But I want you to do just what you think best," she protested. She hadput her hands together. It was almost a supplication.
As to the strange night calls, there was little to be learned. Thenight operator was in bed. The manager made a note of my complaint, andpromised an investigation, which, having had experience with telephoneinvestigations, I felt would lead nowhere. I left the building, with mygrocery list in my hand.
The hack was gone, of course. But--I may have imagined it--I thoughtI saw Miss Emily peering at me from behind the bonnets and hats in themilliner's window.
I did not investigate. The thing was enough on my nerves as it was.
Maggie served me my luncheon in a sort of strained silence. She observedonce, as she brought me my tea, that she was giving me notice andintended leaving on the afternoon train. She had, she stated, holdingout the sugar-bowl to me at arm's length, stood a great deal in the wayof irregular hours from me, seeing as I would read myself to sleep, andlet the light burn all night, although very fussy about the gas-bills.But she had reached the end of her tether, and you could grate a lemonon her most anywhere, she was that covered with goose-flesh.
"Goose-flesh about what?" I demanded. "And either throw the sugar to meor come closer."
"I don't know about what," she said sullenly. "I'm just scared."
And for once Maggie and I were in complete harmony. I, too, was "justscared."
We were, however, both of us much nearer a solution of our troublesthan we had any idea of. I say solution, although it but substituted onemystery for another. It gave tangibility to the intangible, indeed,but I can not see that our situation was any better. I, for one, foundmyself in the position of having a problem to solve, and no formula tosolve it with.
The afternoon was quiet. Maggie and the cook were in the throes ofjelly-making, and I had picked up a narrative history of the county,written most pedantically, although with here and there a touch of heavylightness, by Miss Emily's father, the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus Benton.
On the fly-leaf she had inscribed, "Written by my dear father during thelast year of his life, and published after his death by the parish towhich he had given so much of his noble life."
The book left me cold, but the inscription warmed me. Whatever feeling Imight have had about Miss Emily died of that inscription. A devoted andself-sacrificing daughter, a woman both loving and beloved, that was theMiss Emily of the dedication to "Fifty years in Bolivar County."
In the middle of the afternoon Maggie appeared, with a saucer and ateaspoon. In the saucer she had poured a little of the jelly to test it,and she was blowing on it when she entered. I put down my book.
"Well!" I said. "Don't tell me you're not dressed yet. You've just gotabout time for the afternoon train."
She gave me an imploring glance over the saucer.
"You might just take a look at this, Miss Agnes," she said. "It jellsaround the edges, but in the middle--"
"I'll send your trunk tomorrow," I said, "and you'd better let Deliamake the jelly alone. You haven't much time, and she says she makes goodjelly."
She raised anguished eyes to mine.
&nb
sp; "Miss Agnes," she said, "that woman's never made a glass of jelly in herlife before. She didn't even know about putting a silver spoon in thetumblers to keep 'em from breaking."
I picked up "Bolivar County" and opened it, but I could see that thehands holding the saucer were shaking.
"I'm not going, Miss Agnes," said Maggie. (I had, of course, known shewould not. The surprising thing to me is that she never learns thisfact, although she gives me notice quite regularly. She always thinksthat she is really going, until the last.) "Of course you can let thatwoman make the jelly, if you want. It's your fruit and sugar. But I'mnot going to desert you in your hour of need."
"What do I need?" I demanded. "Jelly?"
But she was past