“Mr. Wakefield wanted her to put Billy in a special school, so then the two of them could go away and live some place like normal people. But she wouldn’t leave. All the time she lived here she never went further away than town, and then she was always in such a hurry to get home that she didn’t get half the things on the list and my father’d have to go back again next day.”
“Did Mr. Wakefield stay here all the time, too?”
“No. He had something to do with shipbuilding, and he used to go away sometimes up to San Francisco and Seattle. But this is a funny thing: every time he came home something had happened, like Billy falling and hurting his knee, or Mrs. Wakefield getting an abscess on her tooth, or the filter system breaking down.”
The wind slipped through the laths and stirred the dust.
“Every night he was away he sent her a telegram,” Luisa said. “She kept them all in the hall desk. When he died she read them all through again and burned them in the incinerator. Before the inquest some men came and poked into everything, even the incinerator, and all of Mr. Wakefield’s drawers and his desk.”
“What were they looking for?”
“A note. The man said it would make it easier for everyone if they could find a note from Mr. Wakefield saying he was going to kill himself.”
“Did they find one?”
“No. There wasn’t any.”
Through the slits between the laths they saw Mr. Roma coming down the path, carrying the pails of chicken mash. He passed on without a glance into the lathhouse. When he opened the gate of the chicken pen the hens squawked and clucked and took nervous little leaps into the air like fat and ancient ballerinas.
“I better go on with my practicing now,” Luisa said, “so they’ll hear me.”
“I’ll go in a minute. What was the result of the inquest?”
“They said he killed himself.”
Evelyn said, from the doorway, “Thanks, Luisa. I don’t know how it will help, but thank you, anyway.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Luisa said, frowning. “I did it against her.”
“Same difference. You’re not frightened anymore, are you?”
“Not a bit.”
“That’s good. After all, she’s just an ordinary woman. I expect we’re both rather silly to hate her so much. We should feel sorry for her.”
She didn’t convince Luisa, and she didn’t convince herself.
She had now in her possession some of the facts that Mrs. Wakefield had been trying to hide, but she didn’t know how to use them. It would be difficult to admit to Mark that she had pumped the information out of a bewildered adolescent girl. As for the facts themselves, she had no way of knowing how he would react; he might be shocked, or repelled, or his attraction for Mrs. Wakefield might only be strengthened by pity.
It was, finally, Luisa herself who forced the issue.
Luisa perceived in the situation an opportunity to change her role from a common tattletale to a martyr. Taking off the necklace in her room, she saw herself as a pure and nunlike creature kneeling before an altar of truth. She put the necklace in a box left over from Christmas and gave it to Evelyn to return to Mrs. Wakefield.
She felt delightfully holy for the rest of the morning.
16
The box lay unopened on the bureau where once Miss Lewis had kept her talcum and unscented cologne and her sterile combs and brushes.
Mrs. Wakefield knew what was inside the box, and she felt no anger at Luisa, only at herself for making an error in judgment. Poor Luisa, she thought. After I leave I’ll send the necklace back to her. Perhaps it will be a lesson to her.
It was two o’clock and she was beginning to feel hungry. She had gone without lunch, partly in order to finish the inventory, and partly to avoid seeing Mark with his family. There was no chance to see him alone, even to say goodbye. Evelyn swept through the house like a wind, penetrating every corner. She dusted and mopped and aired the blankets, singing as she worked, so that there was hardly a moment during the morning that Mrs. Wakefield hadn’t heard her voice, or her steps crossing and re-crossing the hall like a patrol.
She packed the notebook, now nearly half-filled, in her suitcase, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Mr. Roma was at the sink washing his hands and forearms with a piece of the rocklike soap that he and Carmelita made themselves.
“It is very hot,” he said, “considering the morning fog.”
Considering the morning fog that should never have lifted. “I haven’t eaten. I thought I’d make myself a sandwich.”
“There’s no chicken paste, the kind you like.”
“That’s all right.”
“If you wanted to wait, though, Mr. Banner could get you some. He is going into town for a haircut.”
“When?”
“Very soon, I think.”
“Are you going with him?”
“Not today. The pump isn’t working so good, I have to see what is the matter.”
“I’ll ask Mrs. Banner to get the chicken paste,” Mrs. Wakefield said. “She’s more likely to remember.”
“Mrs. Banner is not going either. The jeep is too rough for her.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll tell him to get some then?”
“If it’s convenient. I don’t want to put him to any trouble.” She paused at the door and said over her shoulder, “I finished the inventory. I think I’ll go for a walk.”
“A good idea.”
“It will be my last walk here,” she said with a smile he couldn’t understand. “I want to remember every minute of it.”
When she went out she saw that the garage hadn’t been opened yet, and she knew that if she hurried she would be able to cut through the woods and reach the road in time.
James, the gander, sauntered over with his contemptuous greeting. She passed him without speaking. He was not accustomed to being ignored by people, and he followed her, hissing, and moving his neck back and forth in outrage. The faster she walked, the faster he waddled along behind her, using his powerful wings to gain speed.
She was amused, at first, by the pursuit. But as it was prolonged, past the garage and the cypress windbreak, she began to wonder how far he intended to follow her, and whether his hissing had attracted the attention of the people in the house. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was going, and the gander’s hissing seemed to point to her and to her destination like a malicious accusing whisper.
She knew how absurd she must look, racing against time and an obstinate gander. He had never before followed her beyond the garage, and she wondered what perverse devils were driving him.
She stopped, and looked back at him with hatred.
“Go away, James. Go back. Go back now.”
She tried to sound patient, in spite of her hurry, but the gander wasn’t fooled. He circled her, clockwise, his blind eye, ringed with orange, glowing like an opal. In his male arrogance he thought she was a victim, and when she started on her way again he shortened the distance between them. The flap of his wings frightened the birds. The meadow larks fled to the tree tops and the jays cursed him from the shelter of the leaves.
At the pepper tree where the path curved toward the bridge, she stopped for the second time. Leaning over she picked up a handful of dirt and hurled it at the gander. The dirt hit him square in the face.
He raised his orange beak and honked. The noise was like an earthquake of sound, shaking the trees and splitting the air. Every living thing in the woods responded to the trumpet of war. The lizards streaked for cover. The myopic gophers who had come up to nibble the roots of devil grass, scuttled back into their catacombs, their ears bursting with danger. Every tree quivered with angry birds in ambush.