That was the sort of question the station-master appreciated. His job was
neither demanding nor exciting; an opportunity to talk was worth having.
He said cheerfully, "Why, I don't rightly know, ma'am. Nobody's ever seen
him."
"Nobody?"
"Nope. Nobody. Does everything by mail."
"My goodness, what's the matter with him?"
"Don't rightly know, ma'am. Story is he was once a professor and got in
some kind of big explosion. Burned the hide off'n his face and scarred up
his hands something turrible, so he don't want to show himself. Rented
the house by mail, pays his rent by mail. Orders stuff by mail. Mostly
not real U-nited States Mail, y'know, because we don't mind dropping off
a note to someone in town. I'm the local mailman, too. So when I find a
note to Herby Wharton, the fellow that owns the general store, I drop it
off. Margie Clark over at the bank says he writes. Gets checks from New
York from publishing companies." The station-master looked around as if
he were looking for Soviet spies. "He's a scientist, all right. He's
doin' something important and hush-hush up there. Lots and lots of boxes
and packin' cases I've delivered up there from places like Central
Scientific and Labotory Supply Company. Must be a smart feller. You
visitin' him?"
"Well, he hired me for housekeeper. By mail." Mrs. Bagley looked puzzled
and concerned.
Little Martha began to cry.
"It'll be all right," said the station-master soothingly. "You keep your
eye open," he said to Mrs. Bagley. "Iff'n you see anything out of line,
you come right back and me and the missus will give you a lift. But he's
all right. Nothin' goin' on up there that I know of. Fred Riordan--he's
the sheriff--has watched the place for days and days and it's always
quiet. No visitors. No nothin'. Know what I think? I think he's
experimenting with something to take away the burn scars. That's whut
I think. Well, hop in and I'll drive you out there."
"Is it going to cost much?"
"Nothin' this trip. We'll charge it to the U-nited States Mail. Got a
package goin' out. Was waitin' for something else to go along with it,
but you're here and we can count that. This way to the only taxicab
service in Shipmont."
The place looked deserted. It was a shabby old clapboard house; the
architecture of the prosperous farmer of seventy-five years ago. The
grounds were spacious but the space was filled with scrub weeds. A
picket fence surrounded the weeds with uncertain security. The
windows--those that could be seen, that is--were dirty enough to prevent
seeing inside with clarity, and what transparency there was left was
covered by curtains. The walk up the "lawn" was flagstone with crabgrass
between the stones.
The station-master unshipped the small trunk and stood it just inside the
fence. He parked the suitcases beside it. "Never go any farther than
this," he explained. "So far's I know, you're the first person to ever
head up thet walk to the front door."
Mrs. Bagley rapped on the door. It opened almost instantly.
"I'm--" then Mrs. Bagley dropped her eyes to the proper level. To the lad
who was standing there she said, "I'm Mrs. Bagley. Your father--a Mr.
Charles Maxwell is expecting me."
"Come in," said Jimmy Holden. "Mr. Maxwell--well, he isn't my father. He
sent me to let you in."
Mrs. Bagley entered and dropped her suitcases in the front hall. Martha
held back behind her mother's skirt. Jimmy closed the door and locked it
carefully, but left the key in the keyhole with a gesture that Mrs.
Bagley could not mistake. "Please come in here and sit down," said James
Holden. "Relax a moment." He turned to look at the girl. He smiled at
her, but she cowered behind her mother's skirt as if she wanted to bury
her face but was afraid to lose sight of what was going on around her.
"What's your name?" asked James.
She retreated, hiding most of her face. Mrs. Bagley stroked her hair and
said, "Now, Martha, come on. Tell the little boy your name."
Purely as a matter of personal pride, James Holden objected to the
"little boy" but he kept his peace because he knew that at eight years
old he was still a little boy. In a soothing way, James said, "Come on
out, Martha. I'll show you some girl-type toys we've got."
The girl's head emerged slowly, "I'm Martha Bagley," she announced.
"How old are you?"
"I'm seven."
"I'm eight," stated James. "Come on."
Mrs. Bagley looked around. She saw that the dirt on the windows was all
on the outside. The inside was clean. So was the room. So were the
curtains. The room needed a dusting--a most thorough dusting. It had been
given a haphazard lick-and-a-promise cleanup not too long ago, but the
cleanup before that had been as desultory as the last, and without a
doubt the one before and the one before that had been of the same sort of
half-hearted cleaning. As a woman and a housekeeper, Mrs. Bagley found
the room a bit strange.
The furniture caught her eye first. A standard open bookcase, a low sofa,
a very low cocktail-type table. The chair she stood beside was standard
looking, so was the big easy chair opposite. Yet she felt large in the
room despite its old-fashioned high ceiling. There were several low
footstools in the room; ungraceful things that were obviously wooden
boxes covered with padding and leatherette. The straight chair beside her
had been lowered; the bottom rung between the legs was almost on the
floor.
She realized why she felt big. The furniture in the room had all been cut
down.
She continued to look. The strangeness continued to bother her and she
realized that there were no ash trays; there was none of the usual
clutter of things that a family drops in their tracks. It was a room
fashioned for a small person to live in but it wasn't lived-in.
The lack of hard cleanliness did not bother her very much. There had been
an effort here, and the fact that this Charles Maxwell was hiring a
housekeeper was in itself a statement that the gentleman knew that he
needed one. It was odd, but it wasn't ominous.
She shook her daughter gently and said, "Come on, Martha. Let's take a
look at these girl-type toys."
James led them through a short hallway, turned left at the first door,
and then stood aside to give them a full view of the room. It was a
playroom for a girl. It was cleaner than the living room, and as--well,
untouched. It had been furnished with girl-toys that some catalog
"recommended as suitable for a girl of seven."
The profusion of toys overwhelmed little Martha. She stood just inside of
the door with her eyes wide, glancing back and forth. She took one slow
step forward, then another. Then she quickened. She moved through the
room looking, then putting out a slow, hesitant hand to touch very
gently. Tense, as if she were waiting for the warning not to touch,
Martha finally caressed the hair of a baby doll.
Mrs. Bagley smiled. "I'll have a time prying her loose from here," she
said.
James nodded his head. "Let her amuse herself for a bit," he said. "With
Martha occupied, you can give your attention to a more delicate matter."
Mrs. Bagley forgot that she was addressing an eight-year-old boy. His
manner and his speech bemused her. "Yes," she said. "I do want to get
this settled with your mysterious Charles Maxwell. Do you expect him
down, or shall I go upstairs--?"
"This may come as a shock, Mrs. Bagley, but Charles Maxwell isn't here."
"Isn't here?" she echoed, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that
she had heard the words but hadn't really grasped their full meaning. "He
won't be gone long, will he?"
James watched her covertly, then said in a matter-of-fact voice, "He left
you a letter."
"Letter?"
"He was called away on some urgent business."
"But--"
"Please read the letter. It explains everything."
He handed her an envelope addressed to "Mrs. Janet Bagley." She looked
at it from both sides, in the womanlike process of trying to divine its
contents instead of opening it. She looked at James, but James sat
stolidly waiting. Mrs. Bagley was going to get no more information from
him until she read that letter, and James was prepared to sit it out
until she did. It placed Mrs. Bagley in the awkward position of having
to decide what to do next. Then the muffled sound of little-girl crooning
came from the distant room. That brought the realization that as odd as
this household was, it was a _home_. Mrs. Bagley delayed no further. She
opened the letter and read:
My Dear Mrs. Bagley:
I deeply regret that I am not there to greet you, but it was not
possible. However, please understand that insofar as I am concerned,
you were hired and have been drawing your salary from the date that I
forwarded railroad fare and traveling expenses. Any face-to-face
meeting is no more than a pleasantry, a formal introduction. It must
not be considered in any way connected with the thought of a "Final
Interview" or the process of "Closing the Deal."
Please carry on as if you had been in charge long before I departed,
or--considering my hermitlike habits--the way you would have carried
on if I had not departed, but instead was still upstairs and hard at
work with most definite orders that I was not to be disturbed for
anything less important than total, personal disaster.
I can offer you a word of explanation about young James. You will find
him extraordinarily competent for a youngster of eight years. Were he
less competent, I might have delayed my departure long enough to pass
him literally from my supervision to yours. However, James is quite
capable of taking care of himself; this fact you will appreciate fully
long before you and I meet face-to-face.
In the meantime, remember that our letters and the other references
acquaint us with one another far better than a few short hours of
personal contact.
Sincerely,
Charles Maxwell
"Well!" said Mrs. Bagley. "I don't know what to say."
Jimmy smiled. "You don't have to say anything," he said.
Mrs. Bagley looked at the youngster. "I don't think I like your Mr.
Maxwell," she said.
"Why not?"
"He's practically shanghaied me here. He knows very well that I couldn't
possibly leave you here all alone, no matter how I disliked the
situation. He's practically forced me to stay."
James suppressed a smile. He said, "Mrs. Bagley, the way the trains run
in and out of Shipmont, you're stuck for an overnight stay in any case."
"You don't seem to be perturbed."
"I'm not," he said.
Mrs. Bagley looked at James carefully. His size; his physique was
precisely that of the eight-year-old boy. There was nothing malformed nor
out-of-proportion; yet he spoke with an adult air of confidence.
"I am," she admitted.
"Perturbed? You needn't be," he said. "You've got to remember that
writers are an odd lot. They don't conform. They don't punch time-clocks.
They boast of having written a novel in three weeks but they don't
mention the fact that they sat around drinking beer for six months
plotting it."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning that Maxwell sees nothing wrong in attending to his own affairs
and expecting you to attend to yours."
"But what shall I do?"
James smiled. "First, take a look around the house and satisfy yourself.
You'll find the third floor shut off; the rooms up there are Maxwell's,
and no one goes in but him. My bedroom is the big one in the front of the
second floor. Pick yourself a room or a suite of rooms or move in all
over the rest of the house. Build yourself a cup of tea and relax. Do as
he says: Act as if you'd arrived before he took off, that you'd met and
agreed verbally to do what you've already agreed to do by letter. Look at
it from his point of view."
"What is his point of view?"
"He's a writer. He rented this house by mail. He banks by mail and shops
by mail and makes his living by writing. Don't be surprised when he hires
a housekeeper by mail and hands her the responsibility in writing. He
lives by the written word."
Mrs. Bagley said, "In other words, the fact that he offered me a job in
writing and I took it in writing--?"
"Writing," said James Holden soberly, "was invented for the express
purpose of recording an agreement between two men in a permanent form
that could be read by other men. The whole world runs on the theory that
no one turns a hand until names are signed to written contracts--and here
you sit, not happy because you weren't contracted-for by a personal
chit-chat and a handshake."
Mrs. Bagley was taken aback slightly by this rather pointed criticism.
What hurt was the fact that, generally speaking, it was true and
especially the way he put it. The young man was too blunt, too
out-spokenly direct. Obviously he needed someone around the place who
wasn't the self-centered writer-type. And, Mrs. Bagley admitted to
herself, there certainly was no evidence of evil-doing here.
No matter what, Charles Maxwell had neatly trapped her into staying by
turning her own maternal responsibility against her.
"I'll get my bags," she said.
James Holden took a deep breath. He'd won this hurdle, so far so good.
Now for the next!
Mrs. Bagley found life rather unhurried in the days that followed. She
relaxed and tried to evaluate James Holden. To her unwarned mind, the boy
was quite a puzzle.
There was no doubt about his eight years, except that he did not whoop
and holler with the aimlessness of the standard eight-year-old boy. His
vocabulary was far ahead of the eight-year-old and his speech was in
adult grammar rather than halting. It was, she supposed, due to his
constant adult company; children denied their contemporaries for
playmates often take on attitudes beyond their years. Still, it was a bit
on the too-superior side to please her. It was as if he were the result
of over-indulgent parents who'd committed the mistake of letting the
child know that their whole universe revolved about him.
Yet Maxwell's letters said that he was motherless, that he was not
Maxwell's son. This indicated a probable history of broken homes and
remarriages. Mrs. Bagley thought the problem over and gave it up. It
was a home.
Things went on. They started warily but smoothly at first with Mrs.
Bagley asking almost incessantly whether Mr. Maxwell would approve of
this or that and should she do this or the other and, phrased cleverly,
indicated that she would take the word of young James for the time being
but there would be evil sputterings in the fireplace if the programs
approved by young James Holden were not wholly endorsed by Mr. Charles
Maxwell.
At the end of the first week, supplies were beginning to run short and
still there was no sign of any return of the missing Mr. Maxwell. With
some misgiving, Mrs. Bagley broached the subject of shopping to James.
The youngster favored Mrs. Bagley with another smile.
"Yes," he said calmly. "Just a minute." And he disappeared upstairs to
fetch another envelope. Inside was a second letter which read:
My Dear Mrs. Bagley:
Attached you will find letters addressed to several of the local
merchants in Shipmont, explaining your status as my housekeeper and
directing them to honor your purchases against my accounts. Believe me,
they recognize my signature despite the fact that they might not
recognize me! There should be no difficulty. I'd suggest, however, that
you start a savings account at the local bank with the enclosed salary
check. You have no idea how much weight the local banker carries in his
character-reference of folks with a savings account.
Otherwise, I trust things are pleasant.
Sincerely,
Charles Maxwell.
"Things," she mused aloud, "are pleasant enough."