Part 41 (1/2)

Marise was startled and showed it by a quick lift of her head. She had never known Neale to employ an agent. She looked hard at Eugenia's quiet, indifferent face. The other seemed not to notice her surprise, and returned her look with a long clear gaze, which apparently referred to her hair, for she now remarked in just the tone she had used for the news about Neale, ”That way of arranging your coiffure _is_ singularly becoming to you. Mr. Marsh was speaking about it the other day, but I hadn't specially noticed it. He's right. It gives you that swathed close-coifed Leonardo da Vinci look.” She put her handkerchief into a small bag of mauve linen, embroidered with white and pale-green crewels, and took up her parasol.

Marise felt something menacing in the air. Eugenia frightened her a little with that gla.s.s-smooth look of hers. The best thing to do was to let her go without another word. And yet she heard her voice asking, urgently, peremptorily, ”What was the name of the man from New Hamps.h.i.+re?”

Eugenia said, ”What man from New Hamps.h.i.+re?” and then, under Marise's silent gaze, corrected herself and changed her tone. ”Oh yes, let me see: Neale introduced him, of course. Why, some not uncommon name, and yet not like Smith or Jones. It began with an L, I believe.”

Marise said to herself, ”I will not say another word about this,” and aloud she said roughly, brusquely, ”It wasn't Lowder, of course.”

”Yes, yes,” said Eugenia, ”you're right. It was Lowder. I _thought_ it was probably something you'd know about. Neale always tells you everything.”

She looked away and remarked, ”I suppose you will inherit the furniture of this house? There are nice bits. This Windsor chair; and I thought I saw a Chippendale buffet in the dining-room.”

Marise, immobile in her chair, repeated, ”It wasn't Lowder. You didn't say it was Lowder.”

”Yes, it was Lowder,” said Eugenia clearly. ”And now you speak of it once more, I remember one more thing about their talk although I didn't try to understand much of it. It was all connected with the Powers family. It was their woodlot which this Mr. Lowder had bought for Neale.

I was surprised to know that they had ever had any wood-land. They have always seemed too sordidly poverty-stricken. But it seems this was the only way Neale could get hold of it, because they refused to sell otherwise.”

She looked again at Marise, a long, steady, and entirely opaque gaze which Marise returned mutely, incapable of uttering a word. She had the feeling of leaning with all her weight against an inner-door that must be kept shut.

”Did Neale _tell_ you this man had secured the Powers woodlot for him, for Neale, for our mill?” she heard her voice asking, faint in the distance, far off from where she had flung herself against that door.

”Why yes, why not? Not very recently he said, some time ago. We had quite a talk about it afterwards. It must be something you've forgotten,” said Eugenia. She took up a card from the table and fanned herself as she spoke, her eyes not quitting Marise's face. ”It's going to be as hot as it was yesterday,” she said with resignation. ”Doesn't it make you long for a dusky, high-ceilinged Roman room with a cool, red-tiled floor, and somebody out in the street shouting through your closed shutters, 'Ricotta! Ricotta!'” she asked lightly.

Marise looked at her blankly. She wished she could lean forward and touch Eugenia to make sure she was really standing there. What was it she had been saying? She could not have understood a word of it. It was impossible that it should be what it seemed to mean,--impossible!

A door somewhere in the house opened and shut, and steps approached. The two women turned their eyes towards the hall-door. Old Mrs. Powers walked in unceremoniously, her gingham dress dusty, her lean face deeply flushed by the heat, a tin pan in her hands, covered with a blue-and-white checked cloth.

”I thought maybe you'd relish some fresh doughnuts as well as anything,”

she said briskly, with no preliminary of greeting.

Something about the atmosphere of the room struck her oddly for all the composed faces and quiet postures of the two occupants. She brought out as near an apology for intruding, as her phraseless upbringing would permit her. ”I didn't see Agnes in the kitchen as I come through, so I come right along, to find somebody,” she said, a little abashed.

Marise was incapable of speaking to her, but she made a silent gesture of thanks, and, moving forward, took the pan from the older woman's hand.

Mrs. Powers went on, ”If 'twouldn't bother you, could you put them in your jar now, and let me take the pan back with me? We hain't got any too many dishes, you know.”

Marise went out to the pantry with the older woman, feeling with astonishment the floor hard and firm under her feet as usual, the walls upright about her. Only something at the back of her throat contracted to a knot, relaxed, contracted, with a singular, disagreeable, involuntary regularity.

”You look down sick, Mis' Crittenden,” said Mrs. Powers with a respectful admiration for the suitability of this appearance. ”And there ain't nothing surprising that you should. Did you ever see anybody go off more sudden than Miss Hetty? Such a good woman she was, too. It must ha' gi'n you an awful turn.” She poured the doughnuts into the jar and, folding the checked cloth, went on, ”But I look at it this way. 'Twas a quick end, and a peaceful end without no pain. And if you'd seen as many old people drag along for years, as I have, stranglin' and chokin' and half-dead, why, you'd feel to be thankful Miss Hetty was spared that.

And you too!”

”Marise,” said Eugenia, coming to the pantry door, ”your neighbors wanted me, of course, to bring you all their sympathetic condolence. Mr.

Welles asked me to tell you that he would send all the flowers in his garden to the church for the service tomorrow. And Mr. Marsh was very anxious to see you today, to arrange about the use of his car in meeting the people who may come on the train tomorrow, to attend the funeral. He said he would run over here any time today, if you would send Agnes to tell him when you would see him. He said he wouldn't leave the house all day, to be ready to come at any time you would let him.”

Mrs. Powers was filled with satisfaction at such conduct. ”Now that's what I call real neighborly,” she said. ”And both on 'em new to our ways too. That Mr. Welles is a real nice old man, anyhow... . There! I call him 'old' and I bet he's younger than I be. He acts so kind o' settled down to stay. But Mr. Marsh don't act so. That's the kind man I like to see, up-and-coming, so you never know what he's a-goin' to do next.”

Eugenia waited through this, for some answer, and still waited persistently, her eyes on Marise's face.

Marise aroused herself. She must make some comment, of course. ”Please thank them both very much,” she said finally, and turned away to set the jar on a shelf.

”Well, you goin'?” said Mrs. Powers, behind her, evidently to Eugenia.

”Well, good-bye, see you at the funeral tomorrow, I s'pose.”