King Devil Page 3

  Whatever he might be doing there, he was going at it with ferocious concentration. He’d shed his coat and vest, revealing a frisky taste in haberdashery. Bright yellow suspenders crisscrossed a peppermint-striped shirt, blue arm garters held up his sleeves. His hair was no mousy brown or dull black, but a blazing tawny orange, the exact shade of Miss Plomm’s ginger cat. It grew in an exuberance of thick cowlicks like a young boy’s. She wished she could see his face.

  Lavinia got her wish. As if sensing that he was no longer alone, the man wheeled around on his stool so quickly that for one agonizing split-second she actually caught his eye.

  Back along the path she sped, face crimson, heart pounding. What must he think of her, sneaking around spying on strange men? What if Tetsy got wind of this escapade? She’d better quit acting like Minnie Slocum’s daughter and go finish her unpacking.

  When Tetsy came down to boil the water for Zilpha’s morning tea, Lavinia was innocently lugging in stacks of petticoats.

  “Good morning, Tetsy,” she said demurely.

  Miss Mull turned with a start, as though she had succeeded in forgetting that Zilpha’s ward was now in Dalby.

  “Well, Lav, you’re an early bird.”

  “I thought I ought to get my things out of the way before your workmen arrive.”

  Tetsy didn’t bother to answer. She was busy setting out a dainty tray. Lavinia went back for more petticoats. The workmen began appearing, later than city workmen because they all had farm chores that must be done first, weather-beaten men in worn-out overalls who hadn’t shaved since Sunday, as shy of the young lady from finishing school as she was with them. By tacit consent, they and she ignored each other and went about their business. When Miss Tabard and Miss Mull officially descended, Lavinia felt she had earned her breakfast.

  “Shall I make the toast, Zilpha? You must let me do my share of the cooking.”

  “But Tetsy tells me you’ve already been slaving for hours over those wretched trunks of yours. Why don’t you just go on folding your fol-de-riddles? We’ll call you when we’re ready to serve.”

  She’d always thought it would be fun to help in the kitchen. Zilpha and Tetsy had never let her before, and she might as well face the fact that they weren’t about to let her interfere now. They loved to brag about how they did their own cooking. Both of them enjoyed puttering about a kitchen. Their teamwork was so good that a third pair of hands would only be in the way.

  Back at school, Lavinia had thought that coming to Dalby where there were chores she might share would make for an easier transition than going straight back to the Boston house where servants did everything. Now she was realizing that this more intimate, informal style of living only offered more opportunities for her to become a real nuisance.

  At least she had occupation enough for the moment, trying to fit all her belongings into the meager space provided for them. Lavinia was a good organizer. She worked swiftly and capably, sorting, laying away, shaking out, hanging up. By the time Tetsy came to the bedroom door to say breakfast was ready, she had the room under reasonable control.

  “Going to take all day, Lav?”

  “No, I’m almost finished. I was thinking that I might as well leave my winter things packed, since I don’t need them and there’s nowhere to put them here.”

  “Have to lay them in mothballs. We don’t have any.”

  “But we can surely get some,” cried Miss Tabard. “Let’s put mothballs on our shopping list this very instant.” She adored making lists. “Can you think of anything else you need, Lavvy?”

  “Not this minute, thank you.”

  “Better now than later, my dear. You know we’re miles from a proper market. The village has a general store of sorts, but for any real shopping Tetsy and I must make an excursion to Lake Truance. Between times, we go chugging around the back lanes buying eggs and milk from the farmers. Next year we shall have our own kitchen garden and grow fresh asparagus. Won’t that be delightful? May I fill your cup?”

  “Oh, please! Your coffee is always so delicious. We never got anything but a sort of liquid mud at school.”

  “Must miss the old rising bell,” Tetsy barked. “What time did you get up this morning?”

  “About half-past seven.”

  “And you spent the whole time unpacking?”

  Lavinia felt a prickle across her shoulder blades. Was this a test question, to see if she was going to tell lies where she went and what she did? Tetsy might have been spying from an upstairs window as she climbed the hill. She’d better watch her words.

  “No,” she replied carefully, “it was such a lovely morning that I took a little walk first. I took that footpath to what I presume is Mrs. Smith’s house, then I found another little path through the shubbery, but it only led to some kind of outbuilding so I came back. Is that your winter carriage house, Zilpha?” she finished innocently. “I thought it might be, so near the road.”

  “You actually went prowling among the hills so early? My dear, such energy! Tetsy and I will never be able to keep up with you. I am glad to see that Miss Plomm has succeeded in developing your powers of observation, Lavvy. That building is indeed a carriage house. Unhappily, at the moment we are unable to use it as such. We have a Situation.”

  Lavinia had been waiting for the Situation. There had to be one. Zilpha had never yet acquired a piece of property that didn’t have a built-in dilemma. She’d sometimes thought her guardian was secretly more interested in the problems involved than in the real estate itself. This one must be a real Chinese puzzle, since Zilpha hadn’t written anything about it in her letters. Now that they were within talking range, however, the details would unfold in all their complexity.

  Miss Tabard lost no time in beginning. “The Hollow, Lavvy, as I may have forgotten to tell you amid the haste and confusion, was previously owned by an architect. For some reason, he chose to convert a perfectly good carriage house into an office for his business, and we are now faced with the task of converting it back again, but that is the least of our Situation. The architect is, of course, deceased, so we naively assumed that the business had been dissolved and we should be free to get on with our plans for reconversion. Imagine our astonishment, then, to learn that his former assistants are still carrying on at the old stand. I’ve been trying to buy them out, but there is still one trifling legal snag in the title to that particular parcel of land that has to be cleared before the deed can be passed over to me. In the meantime, the men are stubbornly refusing to budge because they haven’t been paid for the land, although the money is actually being held in escrow for them at the bank. Can you imagine such a predicament?”

  Not being sure what escrow meant, Lavinia couldn’t. She started to murmur something, but Tetsy outshouted her.

  “Money-grubbing beasts! I’d like to give them their just desserts.”

  “Now, Tetsy,” her patroness chided gently, “we must be slow to judge and chary of blame. I daresay I should want to protect my own interest, too, should I ever find myself in such a ridiculous situation as theirs. In any event, so far we’ve had very little to do with them. Our lawyers have been handling the real estate transactions, and I brought that nice Mr. Hollingworth up from Boston to consult on the remodeling. No doubt they’re further annoyed because we didn’t hire them instead, but how was I to know we already had a brace of architects on the premises? I shall have to explain, I suppose.”

  “Why should you?” said Tetsy. “In my humble opinion, you’re far too tolerant about letting people take advantage of you. Oh, drat! Here comes Mrs. Smith to wash up and we’ve not even cleared the table.”

  Through the window, they could see a gaunt figure in a faded cotton house dress beginning the steep descent into the Hollow. Lavinia could see no resemblance between Mrs. Smith and her burly son.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” she said quickly. “I saw the oddest thing this morning. A boy was out in the Smiths’ yard trying to mow the grass, but he had no blade in hi
s scythe.”

  Zilpha and her companion exchanged glances. It was Miss Tabard who spoke.

  “Lavvy, dearest, we must ask you to be very, very understanding about Peter Smith. The child is perfectly harmless, only a trifle wanting in the intellect. As you can imagine, it is an extremely touchy subject with his mother.”

  She had to add the last words sotto voce. Mrs. Smith was an energetic walker.

  Lavinia gulped down the last of her coffee and rose to carry out her own dishes. As she did so, she heard the pealing of a bell from the front of the house.

  “Shall I go to the door?” she offered. “That must be one of the workmen. Why don’t they come around to the back?”

  “Oh, my dear,” laughed her guardian, “they never ring; they simply barge in dripping sawdust all over my best carpets. The bell you hear is our telephone, and Tetsy has already gone to answer it.”

  “A telephone? I shouldn’t have thought there would be any such thing within miles of here.”

  “Neither should I. However, it appears that some enterprising local person started a private company quite a while back, when the machines were first coming in. The whole of Dalby is one great party line. The architect had wires strung out here for business reasons, I suppose, and we were surprised to find an instrument already installed. It’s a convenience of sorts, although we can’t call anywhere outside Dalby and most of the messages we get are to say that something cannot be done or is not to be had. What was that, Tetsy, another impossible?”

  “No, a miracle,” said Miss Mull with ponderous wit. “Lav’s missing box has been located. It’s been all the way to Boston and is supposed to arrive back on that wretchedly inconvenient two o’clock train.”

  “What an adventure! How big is your box, Lavvy?”

  “Not large, perhaps a foot square. I can lift it myself.”

  “Then why don’t we drive down after lunch and collect it in the Packard. That will avoid our having to bother with those unpredictable draymen. Shall we, Tetsy?”

  “Certainly, Zilpha, if you think it safe to leave that color-blind paperhanger to his own devices. And what about that other plan of yours for later on? If we should have a flat tire, we might not get back in time.”

  “My dear, you are so right! Whatever should I do without you to keep me straight?”

  “I can go alone if you want.”

  “But how would you know if they’ve sent the right box? No, Lavvy must go with you while Mrs. Smith and I hold the fort.”

  Lavinia could see that Tetsy didn’t like that arrangement any better than she herself did. Nevertheless, directly after lunch, the two of them prepared to leave.

  “Do you think I need to change?” she asked, hating the thought of struggling back into that elegant but uncomfortable traveling dress.

  “What’s the sense?” Tetsy replied. “You’ll still have unpacking to do when you get back. Anyway who’s going to look at you? Put on a dustcoat and motoring veil and let’s get cracking. There’s been a good deal too much time wasted over getting you settled already.”

  That was hardly an auspicious beginning. Lavinia tried to improve the situation with some polite conversation.

  “What a dreadful shame about that Smith boy. He appeared to be quite a nice-looking youngster from a distance. Is he badly retarded?”

  “Well, I’ll say this for Peter, he’d have been able to count up to six without a hitch.”

  Tetsy must have realized she had gone a bit too far, for she tried to smooth things over. “Oddly enough, the child has an uncommon ability for doing sums. He doesn’t even know how to tie his own bootlaces, but he can read off a string of numbers, add them up in his head, and multiply by anything you please. His mother claims he’s never once been caught in a mistake. She insisted that Zilpha and I test him ourselves. To humor her, we did. He had the answers almost before we could finish writing down the sums, much less cipher them out.”

  “I hope to goodness she doesn’t ask me to try,” said Lavinia.

  “I doubt she’d be bothered.”

  After this exchange of pleasantries, neither had much to say. They rode in silence to the depot and sat in silence waiting. The absurd toy engine tootled to a stop. The porter unloaded Lavinia’s box and put it in the Packard for her. Wiser in the ways of travelers now, she tipped him a dime, and they headed back toward the Hollow.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Tetsy, look out!”

  “Skrraw—”

  Too late. Another hen gone to the stewpot. Lavinia winced and shut her eyes. Tetsy didn’t even seem to notice and would have driven straight over the dead bird, had not vengeance barred the way.

  “That’s goin’ to cost you two dollars, Missus.”

  Tetsy half-rose from her seat, ready to do battle with the irate farmer. “Two dollars, for a stupid creature that didn’t have brains enough to get out of the road? Ridiculous!”

  “Think so? ’Pears to me if you had the brains of a hen yourself, you wouldn’t be runnin’ the roads in a stinkin’ gas buggy you don’t know how to handle. Who the flamin’ Jehosophat do you think you are, anyways?”

  Miss Mull made the mistake of trying to impress him. “I am secretary-companion to Miss Zilpha Tabard.”

  “Ayuh?”

  The farmer spat a stream of brown tobacco juice square in the center of the Parkard’s right-hand headlamp. “I don’t give a jeezledy goddam if you’re the President’s grandmother. That’s the sixth prime layin’ hen of mine you’ve slaughtered since you been up here, and you’re dern well goin’ to pay for it.”

  He hefted his steel-pronged haying fork and gazed thoughtfully at their front tires.

  “Tetsy, you’d better pay him,” Lavinia whispered.

  The older woman glared. “Pay him yourself. If it hadn’t been for you and your dratted box, this would never have happened.”

  There was no sense in arguing. It would take more than a pitchfork to pry Tetsy Mull loose from two dollars. Sighing, Lavinia dipped into her dwindling hoard.

  “Here you are, sir. I’m sorry about the poor hen.”

  “So’m I,” grunted the man.

  He pocketed the money, picked up the corpse by its pathetic yellow claws, and slouched back to his farmyard with the wings dragging in the dust behind him. Tetsy pulled at the throttle. Nothing happened.

  “Drat! Now he’s made me stall the motor.”

  Lavinia sighed again. “Do you want me to crank it?”

  “You wouldn’t know how.”

  Snarling like an old she-bear, Miss Mull clambered down and squatted in front of the automobile. Lavinia had a wild urge to pull on the throttle just as the engine started turning over. She suppressed it. The crank did its work, and the driver climbed back behind the steering wheel, dustcoat filthy and motoring veil askew, a little ashamed and therefore belligerently on the defensive.

  “I still think I did the right thing in persuading Zilpha to have a motor car up here instead of horses.”

  “I’m sure you were, Tetsy. It’s not your fault poultry costs so much more than oats.”

  Lavinia ought to have known enough to keep her mouth shut. Miss Mull turned to scowl at her and almost ran them into a gully. After that, nothing more was said until the silence became intolerable and both remembered that they were supposed to be ladies. They picked their way around the ruts and boulders, choking on clouds of dust in spite of the heavy veils that covered their faces, exchanging over-polite comments on the scenery when they had breath enough to spare for talking.

  “We must be nearly there,” Lavinia ventured to hope as they started up a steep hill she thought she remembered from yesterday.

  “Not far now,” Tetsy conceded. “Once we pass the graveyard, you’ll be able to see down into the Hollow.”

  “Why ever did they put a graveyard way out here, do you suppose?”

  “Family burying ground, most likely. “Only about twenty stones.”

  “Are there any interesting inscriptio
ns? Perhaps I could do a rubbing or two for Great-Uncle Arthur.”

  “Now, that’s an excellent idea.” For a wonder, Tetsy was all approval. “Why don’t you get out and take a look?”

  “I’d love to, if you think we have the time. Zilpha may be wondering where we’ve got to.”

  “What would you say to my going on ahead and explaining? It wouldn’t take you more than ten minutes or so to walk back to the house. Just follow the road till you see the turnoff. Too bad you have nothing to work with, in case you find a likely stone.”

  “Oh, but I do. My art materials are in this box. Have we anything to pry it open with?”

  “Tire iron. I’ll help you.”

  Tetsy was being remarkably gracious all of a sudden. She must be overjoyed at the chance of getting Zilpha to herself for an hour or so. The prospect of a respite was welcome to Lavinia, too. She fished out a lump of beeswax and lampblack, and a few sheets of brown wrapping paper.

  “These will do. Thank you so much, Tetsy. Just leave the crate sitting in the automobile. I’ll cope with it when I get back.”

  “Better leave your coat and veil, too. No sense getting them covered with lampblack. They’d be too hot to walk in, anyway.”

  “That’s a good idea. You will explain to Zilpha.”

  “I said I would. Got your watch on?”

  “Yes, I have. What time should I—”

  Tetsy didn’t seem to hear. She gunned the Packard to full throttle and churned over the crest of the hill in a shower of pebbles. Lavinia had the graveyard to herself.

  Being alone among the headstones was a relief from having to make small talk with Tetsy, but what did the respite amount to? In an hour or so, she’d have to go back. She was beginning to understand how that hen must have felt when something huge, brutal, and relentless rolled over its defenseless body. Was a sudden blotting-out any worse than the slow agony of being made to feel worthless, when she knew in her heart that she could do something useful if ever she got the chance?