Town of Masks (2 page)

“Denny’s gone, Miss Blake,” Sophie called from the kitchen doorway.

Hannah nodded. Obviously Denny was gone. He wasn’t there. It need not be shouted to the world, telling everyone in effect that the boy suffered her and her garden the amount of time he chose, and at his convenience. On his terms or hers, however, she had done well in hiring Dennis Keogh that spring. He was a born gardener. Everything he touched seemed to smile for him, which was more of cheer than he gave in return.

She frowned and moved on to the cucumber mounds, the toes of her shoes sinking into the soft eddies of soil. She stepped back and tried to smooth out the imprints with her fingers. Sophie must have no end of excitement these days, she thought, which accounted for the improvement in her housekeeping. When Sophie did her work in a hurry it was well done. When she dreamed over it, it was slipshod. And her face was alive with freckles. Plenty of sunshine.

Dennis tolerated the girl, no doubt, throwing her a word now and then, which would be enough for a silly thing like Sophie—and earn him the delicacies of the house in return. She probably cleaned his room for him, too. Something more than Hannah had expected, offering him the room over the garage as part of his salary.

She went along to the tool shed for a trowel, having thoroughly trampled the mounds in trying to repair them. If he had many words in him, she thought, he spared precious few of them. None of the little nonsensities that were the stock and trade of most boys. Nor was he a boy any longer. He was twenty-two or three at least, and a vagrant, really. Winters in Florida, sailing boats for the idle by what she had heard, and summers in Campbell’s Cove doing the odd jobs at the wharves, and now in her garden. By no kindness, a responsible citizen. Unfortunate in days like these when every young man with gumption had the chance for a career. But typical of the times. It all came too easy, she thought, education for signing your name, a job for whistling “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” It was spoiling the young and giving the politicians a stranglehold on the nation.

The tool shed was damp and cool, the smell of earth and fertilizer pungent. Dennis was neat. Not a trowel in sight. He had quite taken over. It was very well to have a place for everything, but no need of its being a hiding-place. Even the workbench drawers were locked. The keys, however, hung in their usual place, the ring hooked on a nail at the side of the window. She took them down and turned the key in one drawer after another, deliberately leaving them unlocked.

In the bottom drawer she found a notebook which looked as though it should contain an account of expenditures. Organization beyond what she expected of Dennis Keogh. She flipped the pages, not intending to look closely at any of them, although undoubtedly it was her business. But the notebook contained writing, not numbers, neat, half-printed words with one here and there among them meticulously scratched out and another inserted above it. Poetry.

Hannah sucked in her breath and blew it out again. The wondrous, secret ways of humans, she thought. She read one phrase:

Beloved

Tell me you are waiting the long night through

She glanced out the window and saw Sophie’s white apron as the girl moved to and fro in the kitchen. Her heart was pounding ridiculously. She put a hand to it, her fingers slipping down the softness of her breast, and in the other held the book to the late afternoon light.

Beloved

Tell me you are waiting the long night through

And I will come at daybreak.

With the first bird’s singing I shall tread the dew

And whisper you awake,

Beloved.

She read no more, thrusting the book back where she had found it and locking all the drawers she had opened. The key was moist in her hand. Only with great effort did she leave the shed at what she took to be her usual step. She rounded the house and went in the front door that she might not meet Sophie until she was dressed and ready for dinner.

It was ridiculous to be upset in discovering that Dennis Keogh wrote poetry, she told herself, and that was all, really, she had discovered. Most young men wrote verse—too many of them merely scratching it on public walls. What a miserable association! Oh, bother all of it. Things were at a fine pass when she was denied the peace of roaming her own property—when secrets got locked in her tool shed. Perhaps he had left them there intending her to find them—to read them—

Enough. She began to sing while she drew her bath, catching at the words of a song popular in the twenties. It turned her thoughts to Maria Verlaine again. Tonight Maria couldn’t hurt her. She felt it in her heart. Tonight would be Hannah Blake’s night. And, getting up from her dressing-table clad in her foundation garment, she smiled and nodded in the mirror, rehearsing the humble self-assurance with which she would accept the nomination.

H
ANNAH HELD HER WATCH TO
the dashboard as she drove up to the library. It was five minutes after nine. She peered into the parking area. Mrs. Verlaine’s car was there and so was Edward Baker’s. Satisfied, she drove in. She liked to be early as little as she liked to be late.

She was taken by surprise on the library steps to find Dennis Keogh standing there with an armful of books. Very handsome he looked, she thought, with the open-collared sport shirt: a young Byron or Keats. Or better Poe, with that sober mien. She wondered if it weren’t an affectation, one of youth’s many poses. Still, he didn’t need to practice it on her. Even with that thought she realized it had worked very well in getting her attention. And she was curious as to why he was lingering now on the library steps.

“You work like a Brownie, Dennis,” she said after greeting him.

“How’s that, Miss Blake?”

“Brownies, I’m afraid, are out of date,” she said. “I meant that I rarely catch you working, and yet the garden looks as though you were at it night and day.”

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“And time to read besides,” she said, laying a finger on his books. “I’ve always maintained that the busier a person is the more time he has. Well. I have a library board meeting.”

“I know.” He nodded. “Good night, Miss Blake.”

She watched him go down the walk in great, long strides that took him soon beyond her vision. Either he had planned that she should meet him there or she had startled him away from another meeting. As she moved to the door, she wondered if he would return after she was gone. Unlikely with the distance he had already put between him and the library. He was not dawdling.

One of the library assistants almost collided with her as she opened the door, the Clennan girl. She certainly didn’t waste time getting away after closing time, Hannah thought. She wondered if she knew anything at all about books. Probably not. Most librarians didn’t. Elizabeth Merritt was the exception. They had been fortunate to get a Campbell’s Cove girl with her ability. And a girl with her origins on Front Street no more than a generation back! Elizabeth was indeed exceptional. The happy recollection came to her that Elizabeth had given her name for reference in applying for the post. Just out of school, she had the courage to go after a big job, and the luck to get it. Hannah could still remember her words of recommendation as she had written them:
Modest, pleasant, and intelligent beyond her years.
Six years were not so long ago. She wondered if Elizabeth had a voice in the nominations.

She moved quickly through the arcade. But at the charge desk she paused. It was like an island in the high domed room. The lights were out now in the reading and stack rooms, and the indirect lighting here fell eerily upon the huge mural paintings of the Greek philosophers, playwrights, and poets. Nor had Sappho, the woman of equal glory in the man’s world, been omitted. But she had been portrayed as frightfully masculine, Hannah always thought. A maliciousness on the part of the artist, no doubt. She liked a moment alone here. But a moment was quite enough. Impressive as it was, a library should be a cozy place. The building of this one, planned for so many years, should not have been entrusted to the PWA.

She hastened on to the study room at the back. The French doors were open, the board members gathered on the veranda in the half-light which shone from the globes of the old-fashioned lamp posts. She moved from one member to another with a word of greeting, measuring her chance of the nomination by their response. Friendlier than usual, she decided, or at least more aware of her. Mrs. Copithorne shook hands, and Katherine Shane complimented her on her dress. Ed Baker bowed. But he did that to every woman, silly old fool, she thought. He was the only man on the board. A plumber, he owned his own business and had several men working for him, but he always looked as though he had just slipped out of his overalls and pulled on his coat without rolling down his sleeves. He was responsible for dozens of books on engineering, donating some the board had turned down. To impress Miss Merritt, no doubt. He was just the age for it.

“How is Mrs. Baker, Ed?”

“Oh, not so bad, Hannah. Just ailing a little, thank you.”

She was always ailing a little, Hannah thought, and small wonder with him capering over the town every night in the week. He was a born “joiner.”

She moved on to Mrs. Verlaine. Maria was fussing furiously with a cigarette lighter, the cigarette wagging in her mouth like a dog’s tail. Now and then, with the exertion she put into the unresponsive lighter, she had to push her wide-brimmed hat back on her forehead. Hannah drew a packet of matches from her purse and gave them to her.

“I keep these for such emergencies.”

“Thanks,” Maria said without moving the cigarette. “They deliberately sabotage these things. I’m convinced of it. More work for the repair shops.”

“More work for the undertaker,” Hannah said.

“What?”

“That’s the title of a book I’ve just read.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s an English book,” Hannah said, wishing that she had not mentioned it. Further exploration would need to reveal that it was a mystery.

“Of course it’s an English book,” Maria said. “Over here they’d say funeral director. More commercial.”

“I don’t see anything commercial about it. It’s simply a less macabre description of the profession.”

“And looks better in an advertisement,” Maria snapped.

It was ridiculous to be carried into something like this, Hannah thought, and to no end except Maria’s sour amusement. “Isn’t it pleasant out here?” she said. “Really, we could have meetings all summer.” She amended it quickly: “For those who want them. I expect to be away, myself.”

Maria’s dark eyes roamed over the veranda, meeting Hannah’s only in passing. “Traveling?” she murmured.

“I’m thinking of a trip to Europe,” Hannah said, convincing herself that she had been thinking of it for a long time.

Maria sent a great burst of smoke between them. “Still more work for the undertaker,” she said, giving Hannah her bird’s wing of a smile. She took off the uneasy hat and stroked the fringe of gray bangs on her forehead. “Well, here we are again,” she called out. “To what purpose, Ruth?”

“You’re right, Maria.” Ruth Copithorne whirled about from where she had been chatting. “Are you set, Elizabeth?”

Miss Merritt held up a sheaf of papers to indicate that she was ready and the nine members gathered around the table. Before Elizabeth sat down she threw on the switch for the overhead light.

“Oh, do we need all that light?” Hannah exclaimed. “It was so pleasant without it.”

When no one else responded, Mr. Baker said, “I think we better. I don’t think my wife would approve me sitting in the dark with all you ladies.”

Some of the women tittered. The light stayed on and Mrs. Copithorne, the retiring president, called the meeting to order.

The minutes of the April meeting were read, and Elizabeth Merritt made her monthly report. A concise, forthright piece of work, Hannah thought. How lacking in directness most women were in contrast to Elizabeth. It almost amounted to dishonesty. At bottom it was dishonesty—with themselves certainly. They refused to take the proper evaluation on their own worth. The librarian knew hers and wore the knowledge comfortably. A fine, honest girl. When her report was finished, Hannah suggested a vote of approbation.

All the members seconded it, and Hannah felt complimented herself for her perspicacity. She felt her chances further enhanced. It was strange, she mused, that there had been no discussion of the nominations before the meeting, at least not in her presence. Then it occurred to her that this was a good omen. They were unlikely to discuss it with the nominees themselves. As the meeting progressed, she watched for a chance to clinch the matter, her heart kicking at her ribs in anticipation.

Among the new business of the evening was a demand by the neighboring village of Wallington for library privileges at Campbell’s Cove. The discussion bogged down in a wrangle over the accuracy of the surveys setting the boundary lines.

Hannah was impatient for the floor. “Do they use our fire department?” she asked when Mrs. Copithorne recognized her.

On occasion they did, paying for the service.

“Out of tax monies?”

Presumably.

“Then,” Hannah said, “at such a time as they are willing to contribute tax money to the library fund, by all means let them have the privileges.”

“Well,” Baker said, “the library isn’t out to make money, Hannah. I don’t see the harm in letting them get a little smarter at our expense.”

He dearly loved to play Santa Claus, she thought. “Nor do I, for that matter. But there is an issue of morals in their case, their need for a sense of responsibility. Getting something for nothing is responsible for the condition of the country today.”

“Right, that’s right,” a couple of members chorused.

“Getting nothing for something hasn’t helped it either,” Mrs. Verlaine said snidely, and out of order.

Hannah looked at her. To retreat was to lose the nomination. “You’re merely turning a phrase, Maria.”

“Look under it then for the maggots.” Verlaine snapped. “‘The condition of the country today—’” Her voice trailed off in sarcasm.