Town of Masks (24 page)

Night after night she went to bed in contented weariness. Morning after morning she awakened to see the laborers in her garden, two or three of them, different ones every morning sharing the harvest. Sometimes there were women among them, their calico aprons billowing up behind them as they stooped to pick up their diggings. The garden would soon be bare now. The grapes were full on the vines, the orchard heavy with fruit. They should share that, also, she thought, and perhaps the plowing, and spring planting, and next year’s harvest. Now and then, their laughter or a phrase of a song came up as a part of their blessings on her beneficence. There was an atmosphere of old-world about it, another time when people took their needs from the earth or the water, their pleasure from the songs they made and the company of one another, when the wise wrote books instead of keeping them, when wealth was measured in the granaries and not in the coupons of preferred stock. To perpetuate this scene, this show of mutuality, how happy she should be to convert all her fortune into land!

Idle speculation. And no time for it the last day before the festival. She took her coffee to the study where a map of the Cove had been hung on the wall, marked with pins of varicolored heads, the routes of escape by land and water. She had been over it so many times she could close her eyes and visualize every marking. Strange, to close her eyes and see the heads of pins, and not a face among them—and to find it so marvelously pleasant—to be concerned with people in the abstract. How right that she should be in politics. And to have discovered it so late. No, not late. Such discoveries came when the heart and mind were ready for them, equal to their demands.

The doorbell roused her. Sunday should be her own, with no callers, certainly not unannounced.

She saw Elizabeth through the window. Once she would have quickened to the sight. Now it added nothing to her pleasure, except in that she was pleased at this new self-sufficiency. She resolved not to be tempted back to old affections.

“How nice to see you, Elizabeth.”

“Forgive my intrusion, Miss Blake.”

She had intruded, certainly, but she could not be sent away. Hannah opened the screen door to her.

“Could we stay out here, Miss Blake? It’s so pleasant.”

And my house so grim to you,
Hannah thought. “Of course,” she murmured. “How is your mother?”

“Quite well, and so are Tom and Phyllis. Miss Blake, I want to know why Dennis left. I am asking it very humbly of you, but I want to know.”

She was always humble where Dennis was concerned, Hannah thought. “Sit down, Elizabeth. You don’t need to attack me on it.”

The girl half sat on the railing. It always annoyed Hannah to see anyone do it. “I know he wouldn’t leave without giving you notice.”

“If you want to talk with me, Elizabeth, take a chair, I don’t like to see a person balancing like a pumpkin on a fence. You’re quite sure you know Dennis well enough to anticipate his behavior?”

“I think I do.”

“I should think if you were that well acquainted with him, you might have heard from him by now. He’s been gone a week.”

Elizabeth sat where she was, her face cold and hard. “Why did he leave?”

“I discharged him, Elizabeth. For the good of all of us, I thought it time he left the Cove.”

“What do you know of the good of all of us? What do you know of good?”

“Perhaps my values are different than yours,” she said, smiling.

“I don’t think you have any values, Miss Blake.”

Hannah could feel the languor vanishing like foam. “Elizabeth, why didn’t you fight me on the contest the other night?”

“What did you say to Dennis?”

“Are we to have nothing but questions?” Hannah said. “No answers?”

“I don’t give a damn about your contest, Miss Blake.”

“And I don’t give a damn about Dennis. He has ingratiated himself with more women than you or I could count. He has played on their loneliness and denied them—”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, no, no.”

“Then you tell me.” Hannah folded her hands.

Elizabeth’s eyes bore down on her. “In their loneliness or whatever, they have preyed on him. Yes, you, and your likes, and God help me, even I. We’ve been starved for the spirit of a man as well as his body. We are the craven lot, not him! Hannah Blake, see it, admit it! Look at me. I was twenty-nine years old yesterday, and this spring for the first time in my life I met someone with whom I felt exalted, someone I wanted so desperately—”

No more, no more,
Hannah thought.
Not even for you, Elizabeth, will I be dragged through hope into the slime again.
“Stop it, Elizabeth!”

Her hands were on the girl’s shoulders, shaking her, and she could not remember getting up or putting them there. Elizabeth wrenched free of her, and stood, her hand on a pillar to steady herself.

“Don’t you see what he’s done to you?” Hannah pleaded. “He’s brought out everything shameless. Didn’t Maria warn you?”

Elizabeth’s eyes were terrible, dry, cold, without tears to warm them. “Did she warn you, Miss Blake?”

“No. Nobody warned me. I didn’t need warning. Who in the name of God would warn Hannah Blake?”

“Did you say these things to Dennis? Did you tell him he defiled people?”

“Yes, I said them! And Maria said them before me—”

“Maria did not say them—not those things. Maria Verlaine chose her own life. It may not have been the best life, not even a good one. And maybe she hoped to save me the heartache she had gone through, because she believed that’s what I was headed for. But never—not for a minute—did she regret her love for Andrew Sykes.”

“And you, Elizabeth?” Hannah said, cold as the frosted earth at the word “love.” “You have no regrets?”

“None. If I never see Dennis again, I shall be glad for what I’ve had of him, of his love.”

“A dream,” Hannah said, feeling that she was giving all the wisdom her experience had won. “It will fade, crumble to dust with handling. You’ll learn that.”

“Then it was a good dream of a good person, and if I’m stuck with it—but I won’t be. I promise you that, Miss Blake.”

Hannah smiled. “Don’t promise me, Elizabeth. What is it to me?”

“Please God, it’s nothing,” Elizabeth said.

Nothing comes of nothing,
Hannah thought,
content in the distraction of words
—
speak again!
But she said, “So you’ve forgiven Maria?”

“Yes! She tried to destroy my confidence in him. But you! You tried to destroy him, his faith in himself as a human being—”

“Maria was forgiven,” she interrupted, “but I’m not to be. Is that it, Elizabeth?”

“If you succeeded, until I die, I won’t forgive you.”

Oh, but you will, Elizabeth,
she thought, watching the girl plunge down the steps and across to the driveway, stiff-backed and long-striding.
With your head in the air like that, you will walk through your shame as I did, and out of it, and forgive me as I forgive you.

She was about to turn back into the house when a car on the highway slowed down approaching Elizabeth and stopped. For only a moment. It came on then, and even from the portico Hannah recognized it and its driver, Sheriff Walker.

“S
O TOMORROW’S THE BIG
day,” he said, tossing his hat on the chaise longue. “It’s going to be quite a thing, Governor Michaels and the senator. That takes a lot of influence—a big show.”

“I have a good deal of work to do, Mr. Walker.”

He nodded sympathetically. “And interruptions all morning.” His eyes indicated the way of Elizabeth’s departure. “I’m one of Cravens’ boys, you know.”

“I might have suspected it,” Hannah said. “You did go in on the strength of his vote, didn’t you?”

“It’s funny how the same guy can break and put you together again. He took his first big step after that case I got busted on. State’s attorney. He cleaned house. Then he went through the dust bin and there I was shining like a diamond, like a little, lost diamond. Poetic, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“And I think he’s got another setting all picked out for me. Not while Michaels is governor, of course. But in the temper of the times, as they say, I think Cravens is the safe bet.” He took a cigarette out and tapped it on the railing. “That’s information I thought you might like to have, by the way.”

“What?”

“The safest bet. I’m sort of a recruiting officer for Cravens. After tomorrow you should be in a good position to join us. See the world, as they say in the posters. Plenty of room for advancement.”

“And my qualifications?” Hannah said.

Walker smiled. “You got ’em. From both sides of the track. Uptown, downtown. That’s a beautiful sight in your garden. The peasants at work, voting peasants, of course. And you’re a woman of property, an old and pious family—”

“They’re taking the surplus vegetables,” Hannah interrupted.

“Of course. Don’t you want to hear more of your recommendations?”

“There are more?”

“One important one. The word at headquarters is that you’ve got a good sponsor.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Franklin Wilks?”

He nodded. “A word from him goes a long way down-state. He’s a national committeeman.”

“I know,” Hannah said.

“Of course you know.” He lit the cigarette, flipping the match to her lawn. It was in need of mowing, she thought. That idea struck him also apparently. “You got rid of the boy?”

“I did.”

“And without any favors. That’s smart. It’s a good idea in politics not to take anything you can get along without. But I’m sorry not to have you in my debt. I can give you a few pointers on Cravens, by the way.”

“I think not, Mr. Walker. I don’t like machines.”

“Only if you can run them,” he said. “Don’t be naïve. You’ve got to learn how it works before you can run it. Remember in my office? You said you could go to school to me. How about it? I’m at your service. Look, it’s a sure bet for both of us. You haven’t even started, so you’ve got nothing to lose. And I’m betting you’ll go the whole way.”

“Obviously, you’re a gambler,” Hannah said. “And the friend of gamblers from what I’ve heard. But not of grand juries. I don’t want any part of your help, Mr. Walker.”

He clamped his lips on the cigarette, inhaling. Even his eyes were like leeches. He watched her through the smoke he funneled in her direction. “You can’t have it both ways, Miss Blake. If you don’t like mud, you should stay out of the gutter. We’ve got a pact, you and I, whether you know it or not. I think you do. Do you want to explain that grand-jury crack of yours?”

“No. I was repeating hearsay.”

He drove over her words. “Because I was on an important job at the time, and with no trouble at all, I can repeat a lot of hearsay without saying a word. It’s all in the testimony, Miss Blake. I’ve gathered it all up and filed it away. It could have been filed in the newspapers. They were begging for it.”

She had to dare as much as he did. “Then why didn’t you do it? I’m not afraid of it! The whole of Campbell’s Cove knows it. I have their sympathy, their confidence. No muckraking politician can destroy that.”

Walker smiled. “I wonder. Gossip is one thing—testimony, something else, especially coming out of a murder investigation. You haven’t forgotten that, have you? There was a murder. You and I can’t tell when the lid will pop off that, can we? As I say, gossip is one thing. You can live that down. In fact, you can use it. People can feel ashamed about gossip. If you’re big stuff in a community, you can use it to your advantage. Right?”

Right,
Hannah thought, but she did not answer.

“Now let’s talk about testimony, especially when it gets sanctified in the headlines. That’s when you get specific, Miss Blake. That’s gospel. Take that little poem you wrote—how did it go? ‘Love has unbound my limbs’—can’t you see it? ‘Spinster’s love poems revealed.’”

“I didn’t write it,” Hannah said. “I copied it out of a book.”

“Poor dear,” Walker said solicitously.

Hannah fastened her hands on the arm of the chair. She must not let him drive her to fury, or beyond it. A little twist to her mind or temper, and without intending it at all, he could catapult himself into the office of police commissioner. One way or the other, she thought, he would ride in on her back. She was, in fact, his prisoner—and her own. She was jailor and prisoner to herself, and bribing him was in effect self-bribery. She shook her head. A labyrinth of her own making.

“Well?” Walker demanded.

“I’ll not make bargains with the devil,” she said.

Walker flipped his cigarette to the lawn. “You’ve already made it, Miss Blake. Beware the day of forfeiture.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Walker?”

“No more than you just tried on me,” he said, getting up. “Now I’ve got a little job to do—padlocks for the murder house.”

“Aren’t you late with them?”

“Am I?”

“I suppose you know your business,” she retreated.

“Mine and yours. By the way, Miss Blake, your visitor this morning wants me to find her boy friend.”

It was a mistake, Hannah realized, to have turned on him.

“You should not have much difficulty,” she said as quietly as possible.

“None if I set my mind to it.”

“Mr. Walker,” she said, trying to lift her head above the hypocrisy of her speech, “he’s not important enough for you to take that much trouble over.”

Walker grinned. “Funny, I thought we’d agree on that. Now I’m really going to have to work on Matheson. He’s like a hound dog.”

“I know. He was sniffing around my place last week.”

“Was he?” Walker said easily. “Well, I’ll see if I can find a kennel for him.”

W
ELL, IT’S DONE, HANNAH
thought, walking through the house.
The bargain’s made and it’s done.
What had she bought, really? A little time, a little power? He had not known he was selling time. Fancy, selling a pig in a poke! And it was something less than power she wanted, or something more. She was no longer sure. Not power perhaps, but its complement, esteem. Thus had she come to so despise Walker. In what low esteem he held her, and holding her in such esteem, what monumental contempt for the people who elected him and whose support he expected to rally for her, or her to rally for him and the master machinist, Senator Cravens. He had approached her as an equal. He had quoted to her the recommendation—an old and pious family. He spat upon them, putting her up, and she going up at his bidding.