The Sundial Read online

  “Just bad.” Mrs. Halloran smiled.

  “You remember, do you? Then you see they do deserve some kind of help? After all . . .” Mrs. Willow shrugged, and was silent. After a minute or so, during which Mrs. Halloran regained her pen hopefully, Mrs. Willow went on, “I tell you, Orianna, I’ve got to get rid of those girls; every time some young fellow looks twice at Belle or dances with Julia my hands start to shake and I get so anxious my teeth chatter. I just can’t afford them much longer, and you can see as well as I do that they’re not up to most of the competition they meet; Belle’s past twenty-five and even her hairdresser—”

  “I suppose it’s too late for them to learn shorthand?”

  “It’s almost too late for them to learn new dances,” Mrs. Willow said sullenly. In a fever of irritation she put out her cigarette and got up to pace furiously up and down the satin room. “For God’s sake,” she said, “I’d take anybody. Even somebody penniless. If he had rich friends.”

  There was a long silence. Mrs. Willow walked back and forth, eyeing the draperies, the jade cigarette box, the fine thin legs of the furniture. Mrs. Halloran stared down at her desk, at her unfinished accounts. Then Mrs. Willow said abruptly, “What a hell of a thing to do,” and Mrs. Halloran raised her head. “Orianna,” Mrs. Willow said, “what is this?”

  Mrs. Halloran turned curiously, and Mrs. Willow said, “Look at this thing. It’s disgusting. What’s the idea?”

  “Augusta,” Mrs. Halloran said, “I can generally follow your conversation, since it rarely departs from one or two favorite subjects. But I confess that at present—”

  “Look, then, damn it. If you don’t want people to see it why do you leave it standing there?” Mrs. Willow brought it over; it was a framed photograph of Mrs. Halloran with a hatpin pushed through the tinted throat so that the pin stood out, wickedly behind the photograph and the rhinestone head of the pin sparkled like a huge diamond against the throat of Mrs. Halloran in the photograph.

  “Dear me,” said Mrs. Halloran. She took the photograph in her hand and looked at it thoughtfully. Then, “No,” she said, handing it back, “I have no idea how it got there.”

  “Hell of a practical joke,” said Mrs. Willow, pulling at the hatpin. “Hardly get it out.”

  “Then leave it in,” Mrs. Halloran said indifferently.

  “It gives me the creeps. There.” Mrs. Willow set the picture down and the hatpin on the low table beside it. “Well,” she said, running her finger carefully along the picture frame, “do you think you can?”

  “Can what, Augusta?”

  “Do a little something for my gels—girls? Not much, just something?”

  “I believe there may be an opening here for a housemaid.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Mrs. Willow said slowly, “at least not idiot enough to threaten you. I didn’t go sticking a hatpin through your picture—”

  “That was probably Fancy; she’s been told not to come in here.”

  “—and yet it seems to me that you could use a friend or so, and particularly someone who’s known you a long time and doesn’t have anything to lose by you, only something to gain. But you might as well know that your sister Fanny—”

  “Who hasn’t a cent.”

  “—has bidden us welcome to this house; we may stay as long as we like.”

  Mrs. Halloran turned, staring. “Did she tell you?”

  “Put it,” Mrs. Willow said carefully, “that either we hustle off with a little check in our hands, or we stay, and—” she grinned, “—get born again with all of you.”

  “I will not pay you to go, certainly.” Mrs. Halloran’s voice was quiet. “And I will not go against Aunt Fanny, although I believe she is sadly mistaken here. Yet,” she said sadly, “you and I have so little else to hope for.”

  4

  Mrs. Halloran, who was a tired and sometimes lonely person, sat by herself in her room before the thin-legged desk; it was late evening, her accounts still undone, and distantly she could hear the voices of the other people in the house, and sometimes laughter. Only human beings and rabid animals turn on their own kind, she was thinking; gratuitous pain is unknown in nature. At what point, she wondered, could I have been brought to deny myself all this? Lose the house? How could I have turned aside? And could I bear to lose it now?

  She told them over softly. Richard, Fanny, Maryjane, Fancy, Augusta Willow, Julia, Arabella. Essex. Miss Ogilvie. Could I really die? she wondered, and then, resolute, turned to her accounts. All things must be neat and shipshape at her hands; even if the world outside withered and dissolved Mrs. Halloran would face a new world, herself in order, and balanced, relinquishing nothing of what was her own.

  _____

  Downstairs, they were in the library. In his room Mr. Halloran slept, his nurse nodding beside him, but in the library, Aunt Fanny and Mrs. Willow were playing bridge against Miss Ogilvie and Julia, while Maryjane told Arabella the plot of a movie she had recently seen, and Essex, constrained by Aunt Fanny, advised the play.

  “These are not new cards,” Aunt Fanny said, turning her hand over. “There should always be new cards in the card cupboard, Essex.”

  “I’m afraid I took them out,” Miss Ogilvie said. “I took the first I came to.”

  “We must have new cards for my deal,” Aunt Fanny said. “Essex, do you see my cards?”

  “Yes, Aunt Fanny.”

  “My father never touched a soiled card.”

  “I dealt.” Mrs. Willow overrode Aunt Fanny. She looked deeply into her hand, sighed, thought, adjusted a card, sighed again, and put her cards down on the table. “Pass,” she said. “Will Orianna be down tonight?”

  “I hardly think so,” Essex said.

  “She is adding up how much we all cost her,” Maryjane said. “Every time she goes up to look over the bills I wish I had bought more in the village.”

  “Who dealt?” Miss Ogilvie asked.

  “He was a doctor in this movie,” Maryjane said to Arabella, “you know, with a white coat and devoted to his profession? And his wife, you know?”

  “I guess I pass,” Miss Ogilvie said.

  “Really, partner!” Julia said; she was prepared to suffer much at Miss Ogilvie’s hands.

  “Two hearts,” Aunt Fanny said, “Essex, come and look at this hand.”

  “Two?” Mrs. Willow said. “Two hearts, partner? Essex, does she really mean two hearts?”

  “Mrs. Willow, I was taught bridge by a professional. My father believed that no expense should be spared on my education. Bridge, dancing, lessons in drawing and on the harp. Italian. Astronomy—”

  “Four spades,” said Julia in some haste.

  “Julia, pet, you interrupt Aunt Fanny.”

  “What does four spades mean?” Miss Ogilvie asked. “Essex, what does she mean by four spades?”

  Aunt Fanny went on. “I was only trying to explain that my education was not, as you sometimes seem to believe, wholly neglected. I was not, perhaps, a diligent student, but that implies no criticism of my father, whose only aim was to see me a cultivated, gracious woman.”

  “And she refused to believe him,” Maryjane said to Arabella, “because she had no faith, you know? And of course he had lied to her before, about adopting the child. And then the natives got cholera . . . cholera? Essex?”

  “Pass,” said Mrs. Willow. “I have absolutely nothing at all,” she explained to Aunt Fanny.

  “Talking across the table,” said Miss Ogilvie roguishly. “Now, Mrs. Willow, you know better.”

  “I shall of course withdraw my bid,” Aunt Fanny said stiffly.

  “Not at all,” Miss Ogilvie said. “We wouldn’t dream—”

  “I was taught by a professional, Miss Ogilvie. If my partner reveals her hand, intentionally or unintentionally—”

  “Essex,” Miss Ogilvie said, “what shal
l I do? Julia has bid four spades, and Aunt Fanny has withdrawn her bid, so what shall I do?”

  “—and of course he had to inject the stuff into himself first, to show them, and he didn’t know his wife had—”

  “Five hearts, then, I guess.”

  “That was Aunt Fanny’s suit, Miss Ogilvie.”

  “Oh, dear.” Miss Ogilvie consulted her hand. “I guess I didn’t mean hearts, anyway. I’m sorry, everybody. I did mean diamonds.”

  “Five diamonds?” Julia asked.

  “I stand corrected,” Aunt Fanny said. “I was under the impression that one’s first bid was of the suit one intended. I am happy to know that I have been wrong all these years, and so, of course, was the professional teacher from whom I learned. I have not, of course, kept up with the newer rules, so I am now aware of a kind of bid I had always thought illegal.”

  “—and the chief’s little son, the apple of his eye, and really the cutest little fellow, even though he was—”

  “Essex?” said Miss Ogilvie helplessly.

  “Six no trump,” Julia said.

  Aunt Fanny folded her cards and put them in the center of the table. “If we should ever play bridge again,” she said, “will you, Essex, see that we have clean cards? I had not passed, Julia; you had no authority to bid.” She turned her chair away from the table and, awkwardly, the others set down their cards. “Essex,” said Aunt Fanny, “have our guests been offered drinks? Cigars?”

  “Mrs. Willow,” said Essex gravely, “will you have a cigar?”

  “—and then, of course, all the other natives, and I wish you could have seen it; he was so tall and dignified, and yet he was so happy, too, and in spite of his wife—”

  “I will have a drink, however,” Mrs. Willow said.

  “—and she died, although actually in real life they are still happily—”

  Julia gathered up the cards and laid out a game of solitaire; she began to whistle softly.

  “Consider,” said Essex, “consider—you drink straight Scotch, Mrs. Willow?—consider our several methods of estimating reality. We are, not to put too fine a point on it, gathered here waiting, and yet we have no way to prepare; this is not real, what we are doing now—we have no function, beyond waiting.”

  “A pleasant way to wait,” Mrs. Willow said, looking at the light through her drink.

  “Nothing is actually quite concrete,” Essex said; the absence of Mrs. Halloran made him a little free and he was, in any case, slightly drunk. “We cannot concern ourselves with anything of this world, and we are far from achieving the next; Aunt Fanny, is there nothing we can do?”

  “I am tired of waiting, myself, Essex. But my father said we would be told in time. I think,” said Aunt Fanny, with an unusual burst of confidence, “that we are like people at a summer resort, waiting for their vacations to end. We have never had anything to do, you know, but now we are waiting besides, and it is almost unbearable.”

  “Reality,” Essex said. “Reality. What is real, Aunt Fanny?”

  “The truth,” said Aunt Fanny at once.

  “Mrs. Willow, what is real?”

  “Comfort,” said Mrs. Willow.

  “Miss Ogilvie, what is real?”

  “Oh, dear.” Miss Ogilvie looked for help to Mrs. Willow, to Julia. “I couldn’t really say, not haying had that much experience. Well . . . food, I guess.”

  “Maryjane,” said Essex, “what is reality?”

  “What?” Maryjane stared with her mouth open. “You mean, something real, like something not in the movies?”

  “A dream world,” Arabella supplied.

  Julia laughed. “Essex,” she said, “what is real?”

  Essex bowed to her gravely. “I am real,” he said. “I am not at all sure about the rest of you.”

  “How could you know about me, for instance?” Julia laughed.

  “A few simple tests . . .”

  “Do you actually have a test for reality?” Miss Ogilvie asked with interest.

  “Observation, perhaps,” Essex said, wickedly. “Recollection. Intention, desire, mystic perception of the absence of nothingness. I am going to be sorry that I ever named the subject.”

  “If you are talking about one of my gels I can promise you that you will be sorry, Master Insolence.”

  “Mrs. Willow, I was talking about yourself.”

  “Then reality, as you call it, is something I think I do know something about. If it’s actual real things you mean, and I suppose you wouldn’t be talking about it if you didn’t, then there’s plenty I can tell you. Reality!” Mrs. Willow said, as though she might be saying “Superstition!” or “Leprosy!” She sighed deeply. “We know, don’t we?” she said to Aunt Fanny, and Aunt Fanny jumped. “We’re an older school, we’ve been trained,” Mrs. Willow said. “We’ve been taught, not like you younger things, with your schools and what not. You young people never think,” she observed profoundly, “and that’s what I mean by reality.”

  “What kind of tests?” Miss Ogilvie could not be stopped. “You mean . . . intelligence tests?” She glanced around, blushing. “I mean,” she explained, “the more we know about such things the better able we are . . .” Her voice trailed off, as though even Miss Ogilvie could not contemplate an increase in her own abilities; even a test of intelligence, the silence said clearly, would not appreciably profit Miss Ogilvie.

  “Well, reality,” Mrs. Willow said finally, “all it means is money. A roof over your head, of course, and a little something three times a day and maybe a drop to drink. But mostly money. Clothes. Looking nice, and feeling a little chipper, and of course,” she added, giving Essex a wink—and provoking Arabella into saying “Mother, dear!”—“a man in your bed. Reality!” and now it sounded as though Mrs. Willow might be saying “May wine,” or even possibly “tropical moonlight,” and she gave a happy little sigh.

  “Fortune telling,” Essex said to Miss Ogilvie. “Intelligence tests—palmistry—tea reading—projective tests—”

  “I adore them,” Julia said. “Can we?”

  “Table tipping,” Essex said.

  “Then,” Miss Ogilvie said, trailing a little, “Aunt Fanny’s father—”

  “—and they found the buried treasure right on that spot,” Arabella was saying to Maryjane. “I mean, right where the figure had been beckoning to them. Isn’t it divine?”

  “Now I don’t hold with spiritualism,” Mrs. Willow said. “Present company excepted, of course,” she said to Aunt Fanny. “I’ve seen many a good woman waste the little bit she had left on nothing but a white shadow with a creepy voice, calling and crying over it and spending her life and even her money wasting away to nothing but a shadow herself. Mediums, you know,” Mrs. Willow said in explanation to Miss Ogilvie, who had her mouth open again. “Mediums preying.”

  “Good heavens,” said Miss Ogilvie.

  “You surely cannot mean to include me with—”

  “Well, Aunt Fanny, the way I see it you’re a lady, and a lady isn’t going to tell lies about her own father. I like to think I’ve got an open mind on any subject, but I sure as almighty hell wish I’d been there when Daddy came.”

  “Maybe he’ll come again,” Julia said.

  “I’d really die,” Arabella said.

  Essex said rather sternly, “Aunt Fanny is not a medium or a charlatan, Mrs. Willow.”

  “Lord, dear, I never said she was. I’m curious, is all; there’s a lot more I need to know about all this. And who the devil,” she went on, “are you?”

  “How do you do.”

  Mrs. Willow’s voice had been so level that no one had turned, accustomed by now to her grasshopper speech; when they heard another, a strange voice, answer, all of them were startled and wheeled toward the doorway, all except Miss Ogilvie, who assumed immediately that Mrs. Willow had successfully raised an
apparition (perhaps Aunt Fanny’s father, come to undertake his own defense, and Miss Ogilvie having showed surprise; even, perhaps . . . skepticism). Miss Ogilvie gasped and covered her eyes.

  “How do you do,” Mrs. Willow said formally, herself a little shocked by the promptness with which she had summoned a stranger into Mrs. Halloran’s library; almost lowering her voice Mrs. Willow went on, “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Knock twice for yes, once for no,” Essex murmured.

  “Mrs. Halloran?”

  Thus adequately convinced of either the mortal simplicity of the appearance before her, or—not impossibly—the utter lack of an adequate intelligence system among the inhabitants of another world, Mrs. Willow laughed and said in her normal voice, “Mrs. Halloran has retired. Can I help you?”

  “I’m Gloria Desmond.”

  “Gloria.” Mrs. Willow inclined her head regally. “I am Augusta Willow. My daughters, Arabella and Julia. Mr. Essex. Miss Ogilvie. Miss Frances Halloran.”

  Aunt Fanny came forward; she had, after all, had more ghostly experience than any of them. “I am Miss Halloran,” she said. “My brother is resting, and my sister-in-law is engaged; I am afraid you will not be able to see her tonight. If I can—”

  “I will be glad to send up a message,” Mrs. Willow said, moving in. “What did you want to see her about?”

  “I have a letter for her.”

  “What does it say?” Mrs. Willow inquired.

  “It asks if I can stay here with her till my father comes home.”

  “Who wrote it?”

  “My father did. He’s Mrs. Halloran’s cousin.”

  “Unusually ladylike for that family,” Aunt Fanny told Miss Ogilvie, who, somewhat reassured, was staring with her mouth open.

  “Where did he go, your father?”

  “Africa.”

  “What for?”

  “To shoot lions, of course.”