She shrugged. “What form do they usually take? She went to bed for a month. Now she’s up and around. She’s really quite nice . . . don’t get a wrong impression of her. Unfortunately, she makes almost no sense and you can see she's as nervous as a cat. We don’t quarrel with her if we can help it. She doesn’t mean to be as . . . as awful as she sounds.”
“And she sounds pretty awful?”
“She’s an old friend of mine,” Allie said sharply.
“I’m sure she is,” I said, not at all taken aback ... if you’re among eight-balls you have to be one yourself to survive and I had two more days of this ahead of me and I didn’t intend to be buffaloed at the beginning. Besides, I liked Allie. In her subdued way she was very good-looking and she had the sort of figure I like: slender and well-proportioned, no serious sags and a lovely clear skin. I imagined her without any clothes on; then quickly dressed her again in my mind: that wouldn’t do at all, I decided. Besides, there was the luscious Liz Bessemer down the road waiting for me, or at least I hoped she was. One advantage of being an unmarried male in your early thirties is that most of your contemporaries are safely married and you have the field of single women to yourself, officially that is.
Allie, unaware that she’d been brutally undressed and 18
dressed again all in the space of a second, was talking about Mildred Brexton. “She’s always been high-strung. That whole family is . . . even Rose.” She nodded toward our hostess. “I suppose you know Rose is her aunt.”
I said I did.
“We met them, Fletcher and I, about fifteen years ago when Rose came East and decided to do Newport where we always go in the summers ... at least we used to. Mildred’s the same age as my brother and they were, are great friends. In fact, people always thought they’d get married hut then she met Brexton and of course they’ve been very happy.” I knew she was lying: if only because it seemed unlikely any man could get along with that disagreeable woman.
“I suppose you've known Rose a long time.” The question was abrupt.
“No, not very.” I didn’t know what to say, not knowing what Mrs. Veering had said.
She helped me out. “Oh, I thought Rose said you were an old friend but then she’s so vague. I’ve seen her ask people here under the impression she’s known them for years and it’s turned out they’re absolute strangers. That’s one of the reasons her parties are so successful; everyone’s treated like a long-lost cousin.”
The butler slithered into the room at that moment and came, to my surprise, to me; “Mr. Sargeant, sir, you are wanted on the telephone.” An honest-to-god English butler who said “telly-phone.”
It was Liz. “Oh, hi, Peter. I wondered what you were doing.”
“I've been wondering that myself.”
“Dull?”
“Deadly. How’s your place?”
“Not much better. Will you be at the dance tomorrow night?”
“I don’t know. One of the guests mentioned it so I figured we’ll go; if not . .
“Come anyway. Say you’re my guest. I’ll leave a note at the door for you.”
“I'll like that. It's a full moon, too.”
“A full what?”
“Moon.”
“Oh, I thought you said ‘room.’ Well, I’ll be looking for you.” We hung up. I felt very much better. I had visions of the two of us rolling amorously in the deserted dunes while the moon turned the sea and the sand to silver. Maybe this job wasn’t going to be as grim as I thought.
Around midnight, the bridge game broke up and everybody had a nightcap except our hostess who had what could only be called an Indian war bonnet: a huge brandy glass half filled with enough cognac to float me straight out to sea.
“I hope we’re not too dull for you,” she said, just before we all parted for bed.
“I couldn’t be having a better time,” I lied.
“Tomorrow we’ll do a little business and then of course we’re going to the Yacht Club dance where you can see some young people.”
“And what’s wrong with us?” asked Miss Lung roguishly.
I was not honor-bound to answer that and after a round of good nights, we all went upstairs. I followed Mary Western Lung and the sight of those superb buttocks encased in red slacks would, I knew, haunt my dreams forever.
To my dismay, I found her room was next to mine. "What a coincidence!” was her observation.
I smiled enigmatically, ducked into my room, locked the connecting door and then, just to be safe, moved a heavy bureau against the door. Only a maddened hippopotamus could break through that barricade; as far as I knew, Miss Lung was not yet maddened.
I slept uneasily until three-thirty when, right in the middle of a mild, fairly standard nightmare (falling off a cliff), I was awakened by three sharp screams, a woman’s screams.
I sat bolt upright at the second scream; the third one got me out of bed; stumbling over a chair, I opened the door and looked out into the dimly lit hall. Other heads were appearing from doorways. I spotted both Claypooles, Miss Lung and, suddenly, Mrs. Veering who appeared on the landing, in white, like Lady Macbeth.
“Do go back to sleep,” she said in her usual voice. “It’s nothing . . . nothing at all. A misunderstanding.”
There was a bewildered murmur. The heads withdrew. I caught a glimpse of Miss Lung's intricate nightdress: pink decorated with little bows befitting the authoress of Little Biddy Bit. Puzzled, uneasy, I dropped off to sleep. The last thing I remember thinking was how strange it was that Mrs. Veering had made no explanation of those screams.
At breakfast there was a good deal of talk about the screams . . . that is at first there was until it became quite clear that one of our company had been responsible for them; at which moment everybody shut up awkwardly and finished their beef and kidney pie, an English touch of Mrs. Veering’s which went over very big.
I guessed, I don't know why, that Mrs. Brexton had been responsible; yet at breakfast she seemed much as ever, a little paler than I remembered but then I was seeing her for the first time in daylight.
We had coffee on the screened-in porch which overlooked the ocean: startlingly blue this morning with a fair amount of surf. The sky was vivid with white gulls circling overhead. I amused myself by thinking it must really be a scorcher in the city.
After breakfast everybody got into their bathing suits except, fortunately, Mary Western Lung who said the sun “simply poached her skin.” She got herself up in poisonous yellow slacks with harlequin dark glasses and a bandana about her head.
Mrs. Veering was the only one who didn’t change. Like all people who have houses by the sea she wasn’t one for sun-bathing or swimming.
“Water’s too cold for me,” she said, beckoning me into the alcove off the drawing room.
She was all business. I thought longingly of the beach and the surf. I could hear the sound of the others splashing about.
“I hope you weren’t disturbed last night,” she said, sitting down at a handsome Queen Anne desk while I lounged in an armchair.
“It was unexpected,” I admitted. “What happened?”
“Poor Mildred.” She sighed. “I think she has persecutionmania. It’s been terrible this last year. 1 don’t understand any of it. There’s never been anything like it in our family, ever. Her mother, my sister, was the sanest woman that ever drew breath and her father was all right too. I suppose it’s the result of marrying an artist. They can be a trial. TheyTe different, you know, not like us.
She developed that theme a little; it was a favorite one with her. Then: “Ever since her breakdown last winter she’s been positive her husband wants to kill her. A more devoted husband, by the way, you’ll never find.”