“Perhaps you’d better explain the more difficult things when we come to them.”
“Yes. I thought that would be better. What you must remember is that it’s very important how you throw the jacks out. You must try to throw them so that it’s easy to pick them up in ones or twos or threes or whatever number.”
“I see.”
“If you touch a jack you aren’t supposed to pick up, or even make it move by pushing another jack against it, that means you miss and must give up your turn.”
“All right. I think I understand it up to the more difficult things.”
“Then you may have first turn.” She handed Cora the ball and jacks, and Cora threw out the jacks and began to play. She went through the ones all right, and through the twos, but she missed on the threes.
“That was very good for a beginning,” the girl said.
“Do you think so? Thank you.”
“If you had thrown out the threes a little more carefully, you could have gone right on.”
“I threw them too hard, I think.”
“Yes, they were too scattered for threes. The ball bounced twice before you could pick them up. Did you understand that it’s a miss if the ball bounces twice?”
“Yes. I understood that.”
“I believe I neglected to tell you.”
“That’s all right. I knew it.”
“Then it’s my turn.”
She gathered up the jacks and threw them out and began to play and was soon through the game as far as she had explained it. Then she began to do the more difficult plays, explaining each one carefully and clearly before attempting it, so that Cora would know in advance exactly what was required of her.
Some of the plays demanded considerable dexterity, but she completed them all in order, after explanations, and then she laughed with pleasure in her skill, at the same time looking at Cora ruefully because of beating her so easily.
“You’re far too good for me,” Cora said.
“Well, it’s mostly a matter of practice. I shouldn’t be surprised if you became quite good after you’ve played a while.”
“I could never become as good as you.”
“Would you like to play on through, just to learn? Misses won’t count. I’ll explain things again as you go along.”
“Oh, no. That wouldn’t be any fun for you.”
“I don’t mind. We could play another game after you’ve practiced.”
“No, thank you. I know when I’m thoroughly beaten.” Cora laughed and stood up, looking down at the shadows of leaves in pale hair. “I’m on my way up to the house to see your mother. Is she there?”
“Yes. She’s on the back terrace, I think.”
“Is your father there too?”
“My father’s dead. He died before I was born.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“My mother killed him. She shot him accidentally.”
“What a terrible mistake!”
“She told me about it herself when I was old enough to understand. She thought it would be better than having me hear it from someone else.”
“Your mother was wise to tell it to you in her own way.”
“What do you want to see my mother about?”
“I thought she might like to contribute to a charity I’m interested in.
“Well, I don’t know. Mother’s very rich, of course, because of all the money Father left her, but she already has certain charities she supports.”
“In any case, it will do no harm to ask her, will it?”
“No. You can go right around the house to the terrace if you like.”
“I don’t think I’d better do that. I’ll ring at the front door and ask permission to see her first.”
“Perhaps that would be better. Will you be back this way soon?”
“Probably. Pretty soon.”
“If I’m still here, I’ll say goodbye to you then.”
“That would be nice.”
“Thank you for playing jacks with me.”
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure. The pleasure was mine.”
Cora turned away and went on up the curving concrete walk past a small fountain showering water like shards of glittering glass into the sunlight. Beyond the fountain she ascended three wide steps and passed between tall columns onto the veranda of a Colonial-style house.
The house was white with dark green shutters at the windows, and it looked cool and gracious in the white, hot light of the afternoon. It was, in fact, much cooler on the veranda, out of the sun, and Cora waited for a few seconds with the most delicious sense of relief and pleasure before ringing the doorbell.
She was still thinking of the little girl under the white birch beside the walk, and it seemed to her a favorable omen that she had come across her on this particular day.
It takes Jacks or better to open, she thought, feeling with the thought the delightful, tremulous sensation of inner laughter.
She rang the doorbell and waited, listening to the sounds of diminishing chimes, and soon the door was opened by a woman in the uniform of a maid. Conditioned air, escaping, flowed outward.
“Yes?” the maid said.
“I would like to see Mrs. Morrow,” Cora said.
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“Cora Rogan.”
“Will you state the nature of your visit, please?”
“It’s personal. If Mrs. Morrow will be so kind as to see me, I’ll take only a few minutes of her time.”
“If you’ll step in and wait a minute, I’ll speak with Mrs. Morrow.”
Cora stepped into a wide hall which divided ahead of her, ascending spirally on the right to the second floor and running on the left through the house to the rear.
The maid closed the front door and walked down the hall past the staircase, turning and disappearing into a room on the right side, and Cora remained standing in the cool, conditioned air. Her reflection waited with her, trapped in glass on a wall beside her, and she exchanged long looks with the reflection and smiled a little and was, on the whole, rather pleased.
She was thirty-eight now, no longer young, but she was slender as a girl in a beige linen suit, and her flesh was still firm, with only the slightest deepening of lines around the eyes and mouth, and she could still pass in soft light for what she really no longer was. Nowadays she grew tired more often than she had used to, of course, and once in a while she became a little frightened when she thought of the years that had gone so swiftly and the years that had still, somehow, to come and go.
Turning away from the reflection of herself, she looked slowly around the hall, her eyes moving deliberately from one thing to another, and she thought as she looked that it was much the same as it used to be. There was a new runner on the stairs, and the telephone on the table against the wall was pale green instead of black, and the painting on the wall above the telephone was different from the one that had hung there before — but nothing of any significance had changed, not even the basic colors or the subtle sense of character that houses have.
She took a couple of steps toward the stairs, her thin heels tapping sharply on the gleaming hardwood floor, and at that moment the maid reappeared suddenly in the hall at the rear and came forward.
“If you will come this way, please,” she said, “Mrs. Morrow will see you.”
Cora followed her down the hall and off to the right into a large room with high, wide windows and a pair of glass doors opening onto a flagstone terrace. The maid stopped just inside the room and nodded toward the doors, through which Cora could see, sitting in a bright canvas chair beside a glass-topped table, a woman in a sheer flowered dress. On the table were an open book, lying face down, and a pitcher and matching glasses.
Cora crossed to the glass doors and let herself out onto the terrace, and the woman, Julia Morrow, stood up beside the table and greeted her with an expression in which there was the slightest suggestion of curiosity.