Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (51 page)

“I’m sure of it,” I said. “Try not to think about it anymore tonight.”

“They wouldn’t believe me.”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t your fault, and it won’t do you any good to keep brooding on it; right now you’ve got to sleep.”

“I knew all about it,” she said.

“Shh,” I said. I turned out the light, and went over to kiss her good night and she looked up at me and said, “Don’t go in any boats.” She had some strange connection in that odd mind between me and boats; she must have mentioned it half a dozen times during those first few days, when her thoughts were so confused and dazed. I suppose she had heard something, or perhaps Helen and Don had said something—maybe one of the last things they said to her; people always remember something like that—and it could have been about me; they talked about us enough, heaven knows. Anyway, I told her not to worry about boats anymore, that everything was going to be all right, and I finally leaned over and gave her a little kiss on that big white forehead and said, “Good night.”

“Good night,” she said. I turned on Dorrie’s night-light in case she should wake up in the night and forget she was in Dorrie’s room and then closed the door and came downstairs to wait for Howard.

When he came in he was feeling pretty awful, so I made him some cocoa and while he had it we sat and talked about our trip to Maine. “There’s certainly no chance of it
now
,” I told him. “The girl’s right upstairs. We can’t do a thing until the aunt comes.”

“They notified the aunt,” Howard said. “Sent a cable from the police station.”

“What makes me hopping mad is having to unpack the bags. And my nice green sweater I bought just for the trip.”

“Well, it wouldn’t look very good if we just took off and left the girl alone.”

“No,” I said. “It’s a terrible thing,” I told him, “a terrible thing to happen
anytime
, of course, but wouldn’t you just
know
they’d go and do it now?”

“No help for it. We’ll have to try and plan something else. Is she asleep?”

“I think she must be. I gave her some cocoa. You know, that’s another thing that bothers me. That girl hasn’t cried a single tear.”

“Kids like that sometimes feel it worse inside.”

“Maybe,” but I didn’t think so. “No early start tomorrow, I guess.”

I really felt like crying, seeing Howard take those suitcases upstairs, but he told me to cheer up. “It’s rotten bad luck,” he said, “but we’ll think of something else.”

There was a lot to do the next day. First, I had to unpack those suitcases and put everything away so it wouldn’t wrinkle. Also, I thought I kind of ought to go over to the Lansons’ and straighten up—Helen Lanson always left things in a mess, and I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised to find her dinner dishes still dirty in her sink; that girl wouldn’t lift a finger to wash them, I know now, after having her in my house. Not one thing did she do. I can’t quite picture Helen Lanson picking up after her, so I guess Vicky kept that room of hers at home looking so swept and bare, but in my house she never made Dorrie’s bed once, never got out of her chair to take a dish to the kitchen, never offered to dust or vacuum even though half the mess was on her account.

I had to forgive her, of course, because of the sad blow she’d had, but I’d just like to see my Dorrie act like that no matter
what
happened. I mean, even if I was dead it would give me comfort to know that my daughter didn’t forget her training, and the nice manners I taught her.

Half the time Vicky never bothered to answer at all when she was spoken to. That morning I asked her what she wanted me to bring her back from her own house and she just looked at me. Maybe there was nothing there she wanted. I just decided the aunt would have to look over everything. Helen Lanson had some lovely china, and a set of wineglasses I would have given my right arm to own; she’d inherited them from her grandmother, and you’d think even a child like Vicky would have some sense of their value, but when I mentioned them and said how much I coveted them, she only stared at me. I straightened things up around the Lansons’ house and got some clothes for Vicky, and then locked everything up tight and brought the keys home and set them on the mantel, where I could find them right away when the aunt came. If I had been another kind of person, I could have those wineglasses today and no one would ever have known.

I was pretty sure that along during the day people would be coming in; the Lansons being as popular as they were, it seemed a lot of their friends might drop over to see if Vicky was all right and I wasn’t starving her or beating her or something. You’d think with all the friends the Lansons had, someone might have come forward to take the girl so we wouldn’t be tied down with her, but of course we were right on the spot when someone was needed, and as Howard said, it still wouldn’t look right to go off so soon. The doctor said Vicky was fine; she spent most of the morning up in Dorrie’s room reading Dorrie’s books, and after lunch I told her to dress nicely and comb her hair and come downstairs to sit. I just wanted her there looking proper if anyone came; lucky she had a dark dress to wear. Mrs. Wright came by early; she lived down the street and had only just heard. She was kind of sniffling, with a handkerchief over her face most of the time, and she patted Vicky’s hand and said it was heartbreaking, just heartbreaking, and Vicky looked at her. After a minute or so of this she gave up and followed me out to the kitchen to get a cup of tea and said, “Has she been like this ever since
it
happened?”

“No,” I said. “All night she was asleep.”

“Has she been crying?”

“Not a single tear.”

I got the cups out; one thing about Mrs. Wright, you don’t get off easy. Tea and chocolate cake were the least she expected, and I supposed if the Lansons’ fancy friends dropped around later it would mean cocktails and potato chips and crackers and olives and whatnot. “It’s a heartbreaking thing,” Mrs. Wright kept saying, “simply heartbreaking. Were they killed instantly?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know anything about it.” I knew what she wanted to ask me, but I wasn’t going to help her out. It’s not good for people to think about such things; I never asked Howard a word about it and he never offered to tell me, because I always think that a person has enough everyday troubles without going looking for the horrible details of what happens to other people. “They hit a truck,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“Anyway, it will be in the paper tonight. That poor little girl. Who told her? You? How did she take it?”

“About as you’d expect,” I said. I didn’t want Mrs. Wright blaming
me
for the way Vicky acted; she might think I’d broken the news wrong, or something, so I started back into the living room with the tea tray and of course she had to follow me and couldn’t ask any more about it with Vicky sitting right there. She tried to make bright conversation instead, I guess to cheer Vicky a little, although I could have told her to save her breath.

She told about Mrs. Haven at the grocery forgetting her lamb chops and how the grocer had to come down from his dinner and open the store for her and she told about the Actons’ cat getting run over, but she stopped herself in the middle of that and looked at Vicky to see if she had said anything wrong and then she started quickly to tell about her grandson, who just got admitted to medical school.

“He’s going to be a doctor,” she explained.

“He’ll be caught with a girl in his room and expelled pretty soon,” Vicky said suddenly.

“Vicky!” I said. I couldn’t think of anything decent to say; I mean, I couldn’t punish her, her not being my child and all, but I did think I ought to do something, with Mrs. Wright sitting there with her mouth open. “Young ladies should speak politely in company, Vicky,” I said. Dorrie would never have said a thing like that about Mrs. Wright’s grandson.

“I’ll overlook it,” Mrs. Wright said, “considering your present circumstances, Vicky, although you ought not to have that kind of thought with your parents lying there—” She stopped, and took out her handkerchief again, and Vicky stared at the wall, and I thought it would be a pleasure to tan that young lady’s hide.

Later some of the Lansons’ friends did come, as I expected, and it was cocktails and potato chips and crackers and pickles and everything; we could have had a party of our own, and invited our own friends, for what it cost us to entertain the Lansons’ friends, although I must say that one of the men took the Lansons’ keys and went over and got a bottle of gin because, he said, it was the least the Lansons would want us to do, and I thought that was probably true. Everyone tried to say something nice to Vicky, but it was hard. I heard one conversation that shocked me, because if I heard Dorrie talking like that to her elders, I would have washed her mouth out with soap. A Mr. Sherman, whom I hadn’t met before, was telling her what a fine man her father had been—I suppose he thought he ought to, although anyone who knew Don Lanson knew better—and Vicky came right out and said, in that flat voice of hers, “Your wife finally has the evidence to divorce you.” You can imagine how that sounded, right to an old friend of her father’s, and he was surprised to hear it, you could tell; I don’t think my Dorrie even knows the
word
divorce. Later I heard her telling her father’s lawyer that the papers in his office were going to be burned up in a big fire; he had been talking to her about her father’s will, and I suppose somehow the idea of a will got through to her—a little thing like that will, sometimes, you know—so she reacted like a spiteful baby. I thought it was extremely rude of her, driving her father’s friends out of my house like that, and I was going to tell her so, but there was always someone there talking to her, patting her hand and telling her to be brave. Tell Vicky to be brave—tell the ocean to keep rolling.

Well, it was like that till her aunt came. She was delayed getting here—some trouble with the plane—and so she missed the funeral, but I saw that Vicky was there in a dark blue dress and black shoes and her hair combed, and all, and never a tear did that child shed. They had a nice attendance, I must say. You would have thought the Lansons were the most popular people in town, but I suppose people thought it was a friendly gesture to Vicky, and of course since Howard and I were kind of in charge, I guess a lot of people came out of courtesy to us. Once during the ceremony Vicky leaned over toward me and whispered, “You see that man over there, the one with the bald head and the gray suit? He stole some money and they’re going to put him in jail,” which I thought a disrespectful and silly remark to make during her parents’ own funeral, particularly since a lot of people thought she was getting overcome and looked to see if I was going to have to take her out.

The day the aunt arrived was the day of the big fire downtown that destroyed almost a whole block of offices, so I didn’t have a chance to introduce her to many of the people who had been dropping in nearly every day. I had Vicky’s clothes all clean and neat—I could hardly send her home dirty, after all—and packed ready to take back. I must say I wasn’t sorry to see that girl turned over to her own relatives; it was hard, having her in Dorrie’s room all the time, and Howard was getting so he could hardly eat, looking at her sitting there at the dinner table every night and stuffing herself. The night before she went to her aunt—they were going to stay next door for a day or so, arranging for things to be sold and to be stored and to be given away, and I must say I had half an idea that the aunt might have thought of me when it came to the wineglasses, Vicky knowing how I wanted them so much, and after all I’d done—the night before she left, when I went in to say good night, she gave me her little red notebook. “This is for you,” she said. “I want you to have it because you’ve been so kind to me.”

Well, it was the only word of thanks I was ever to get. Not one word was ever said about those wineglasses. I knew she prized the little book and thought she was giving me something precious, so I took it. “Stay away from boats,” she said, and I laughed at her, I really had to, and then she told me to take good care of the little book and of course I promised her I would.

“I’ll remember you when I’m in London, England,” she said. “Tell Dorrie to write to me sometimes.”

“I surely will,” I said. Dorrie is the sweetest child in the world, and if she thought it would give Vicky any pleasure to get a letter from her, she’d sit right down. “Now, good night,” I said. I had gotten used to kissing her good night, but I never looked forward to it.

“Good night,” she said, and went right off to sleep, as she always did. Well, they left, and I hear the house has been sold and someone new was coming to live there. I took a look at Vicky’s little red notebook, thinking it might be a little book of poems like Dorrie gave me once, or even pictures of something, but I was disappointed; the child had been amusing herself writing gossipy little paragraphs about her neighbors and her parents’ friends—although what else would you expect, considering the way Don and Helen used to talk about people?—and horror tales about atom bombs and the end of the world, not at all the kind of thing you like to think about a child dwelling on; I wouldn’t have Dorrie thinking about things like that, and I threw the little book in the furnace. She must have been a very lonely child, I thought, to spend her time writing sad little stories. I hope she’s as happy in London as she expected to be, and meanwhile we’ve decided what we’re going to do to make up for our lost trip to Maine. We’ll keep Dorrie out of school for a couple of weeks—she’s always at the top; she can miss a little work—and we’re all going to go on a cruise.

H
OME

Ladies’ Home Journal,
August 1965

E
THEL
S
LOANE WAS WHISTLING
to herself as she got out of her car and splashed across the sidewalk to the doorway of the hardware store. She was wearing a new raincoat and solid boots, and one day of living in the country had made her weather-wise. “This rain can’t last,” she told the hardware clerk confidently. “This time of year it never lasts.”

The clerk nodded tactfully. One day in the country had been enough for Ethel Sloane to become acquainted with most of the local people; she had been into the hardware store several times—“so many odd things you never expect you’re going to need in an old house”—and into the post office to leave their new address, and into the grocery to make it clear that all the Sloane grocery business was going to come their way, and into the bank and into the gas station and into the little library and even as far as the door of the barbershop (“… and you’ll be seeing my husband Jim Sloane in a day or so!”). Ethel Sloane liked having bought the old Sanderson place, and she liked walking the single street of the village, and most of all she liked knowing that people knew who she was.

“They make you feel at home right away, as though you were born not half a mile from here,” she explained to her husband, Jim.

Privately she thought that the storekeepers in the village might show a little more alacrity in remembering her name; she had probably brought more business to the little stores in the village than any
of
them had seen for a year past. They’re not outgoing people, she told herself reassuringly. It takes a while for them to get over being suspicious; we’ve been here in the house for only two days.

“First, I want to get the name of a good plumber,” she said to the clerk in the hardware store. Ethel Sloane was a great believer in getting information directly from the local people; the plumbers listed in the phone book might be competent enough, but the local people always knew who would suit; Ethel Sloane had no intention of antagonizing the villagers by hiring an unpopular plumber. “And closet hooks,” she said. “My husband, Jim, turns out to be just as good a handyman as he is a writer.” Always tell them your business, she thought, then they don’t have to ask.

“I suppose the best one for plumbing would be Will Watson,” the clerk said. “He does most of the plumbing around. You drive down the Sanderson road in this rain?”

“Of course.” Ethel Sloane was surprised. “I had all kinds of things to do in the village.”

“Creek’s pretty high. They say that sometimes when the creek is high—”

“The bridge held our moving truck yesterday, so I guess it will hold my car today. That bridge ought to stand for a while yet.” Briefly she wondered whether she might not say “for a spell” instead of “for a while,” and then decided that sooner or later it would come naturally. “Anyway, who minds rain? We’ve got so much to do indoors.” She was pleased with “indoors.”

“Well,” the clerk said, “of course, no one can stop you from driving on the old Sanderson road. If you want to. You’ll find people around here mostly leave it alone in the rain, though. Myself, I think it’s all just gossip, but then, I don’t drive out that way much, anyway.”

“It’s a little muddy on a day like this,” Ethel Sloane said firmly, “and maybe a little scary crossing the bridge when the creek is high, but you’ve got to expect that kind of thing when you live in the country.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” the clerk said. “Closet hooks? I wonder, do we have any closet hooks.”

In the grocery Ethel Sloane bought mustard and soap and pickles and flour. “All the things I forgot to get yesterday,” she explained, laughing.

“You took that road on a day like this?” the grocer asked.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, surprised again. “I don’t mind the rain.”

“We don’t use that road in this weather,” the grocer said. “You might say there’s talk about that road.”

“It certainly seems to have quite a local reputation,” Ethel said, and laughed. “And it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the other roads I’ve seen around here.”

“Well, I told you,” the grocer said, and shut his mouth.

I’ve offended him, Ethel thought, I’ve said I think their roads are bad; these people are so jealous of their countryside.

“I guess our road is pretty muddy,” she said almost apologetically. “But I’m really a very careful driver.”

“You stay careful,” the grocer said. “No matter what you see.”

“I’m always careful.” Whistling, Ethel Sloane went out and got into her car and turned in the circle in front of the abandoned railway station. Nice little town, she was thinking, and they are beginning to like us already, all so worried about my safe driving. We’re the kind of people, Jim and I, who fit in a place like this; we wouldn’t belong in the suburbs or some kind of a colony; we’re real people. Jim will write, she thought, and I’ll get one of these country women to teach me how to make bread. Watson for plumbing.

She was oddly touched when the clerk from the hardware store and then the grocer stepped to their doorways to watch her drive by. They’re worrying about me, she thought; they’re afraid a city gal can’t manage their bad, wicked roads, and I do bet it’s hell in the winter, but I can manage; I’m country now.

Her way led out of the village and then off the highway onto a dirt road that meandered between fields and an occasional farmhouse, then crossed the creek—disturbingly high after all this rain—and turned onto the steep hill that led to the Sanderson house. Ethel Sloane could see the house from the bridge across the creek, although in summer the view would be hidden by trees. It’s a lovely house, she thought with a little catch of pride; I’m so lucky; up there it stands, so proud and remote, waiting for me to come home.

On one side of the hill the Sanderson land had long ago been sold off, and the hillside was dotted with small cottages and a couple of ramshackle farms; the people on that side of the hill used the other, lower, road, and Ethel Sloane was surprised and a little uneasy to perceive that the tire marks on this road and across the bridge were all her own, coming down; no one else seemed to use this road at all. Private, anyway, she thought; maybe they’ve talked everyone else out of using it. She looked up to see the house as she crossed the bridge; my very own house, she thought, and then, well,
our
very own house, she thought, and then she saw that there were two figures standing silently in the rain by the side of the road.

Good heavens, she thought, standing there in this rain, and she stopped the car. “Can I give you a lift?” she called out, rolling down the window. Through the rain she could see that they seemed to be an old woman and a child, and the rain drove down on them. Staring, Ethel Sloane became aware that the child was sick with misery, wet and shivering and crying in the rain, and she said sharply, “Come and get in the car at once; you mustn’t keep that child out in the rain another minute.”

They stared at her, the old woman frowning, listening. Perhaps she is deaf, Ethel thought, and in her good raincoat and solid boots she climbed out of the car and went over to them. Not wanting for any reason in the world to touch either of them, she put her face close to the old woman’s and said urgently, “Come, hurry. Get that child into the car, where it’s dry. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Then, with real horror, she saw that the child was wrapped in a blanket, and under the blanket he was wearing thin pajamas; with a shiver of fury, Ethel saw that he was barefoot and standing in the mud. “Get in that car at once,” she said, and hurried to open the back door. “Get in that car at once, do you hear me?”

Silently the old woman reached her hand down to the child and, his eyes wide and staring past Ethel Sloane, the child moved toward the car, with the old woman following. Ethel looked in disgust at the small bare feet going over the mud and rocks, and she said to the old woman, “You ought to be ashamed; that child is certainly going to be sick.”

She waited until they had climbed into the backseat of the car, and then slammed the door and got into her seat again. She glanced up at the mirror, but they were sitting in the corner, where she could not see them, and she turned; the child was huddled against the old woman, and the old woman looked straight ahead, her face heavy with weariness.

“Where are you going?” Ethel asked, her voice rising. “Where shall I take you? That child,” she said to the old woman, “has to be gotten indoors and into dry clothes as soon as possible. Where are you going? I’ll see that you get there in a hurry.”

The old woman opened her mouth, and in a voice of old age beyond consolation said, “We want to go to the Sanderson place.”

“To the Sanderson place?” To us? Ethel thought, To see us? This pair? Then she realized that the Sanderson place, to the old local people, probably still included the land where the cottages had been built; they probably still call the whole thing the Sanderson place, she thought, and felt oddly feudal with pride. We’re the lords of the manor, she thought, and her voice was more gentle when she asked, “Were you waiting out there for very long in the rain?”

“Yes,” the old woman said, her voice remote and despairing. Their lives must be desolate, Ethel thought. Imagine being that old and that tired and standing in the rain for someone to come by.

“Well, we’ll soon have you home,” she said, and started the car. The wheels slipped and skidded in the mud, but found a purchase, and slowly Ethel felt the car begin to move up the hill. It was very muddy, and the rain was heavier, and the back of the car dragged as though under an intolerable weight. It’s as though I had a load of iron, Ethel thought. Poor old lady, it’s the weight of years.

“Is the child all right?” she asked, lifting her head; she could not turn to look at them.

“He wants to go home,” the old woman said.

“I should think so. Tell him it won’t be long. I’ll take you right to your door.” It’s the least I can do, she thought, and maybe go inside with them and see that he’s warm enough; those poor bare feet.

Driving up the hill was very difficult, and perhaps the road was a little worse than Ethel had believed; she found that she could not look around or even speak while she was navigating the sharp curves, with the rain driving against the windshield and the wheels slipping in the mud. Once she said, “Nearly at the top,” and then had to be silent, holding the wheel tight. When the car gave a final lurch and topped the small last rise that led onto the flat driveway before the Sanderson house, Ethel said, “Made it,” and laughed. “Now, which way should I go?”

They’re frightened, she thought. I’m sure the child is frightened and I don’t blame them; I was a little nervous myself. She said loudly, “We’re at the top now, it’s all right, we made it. Now where shall I take you?”

When there was still no answer, she turned; the backseat of the car was empty.

“But even if they
could
have gotten out of the car without my noticing,” Ethel Sloane said for the tenth time that evening to her husband, “they couldn’t have gotten out of sight. I looked and looked.” She lifted her hands in an emphatic gesture. “I went all around the top of the hill in the rain looking in all directions and calling them.”

“But the car seat was dry,” her husband said.

“Well, you’re not going to suggest that I imagined it, are you? Because I’m simply not the kind
of person
to dream up an old lady and a sick child. There has to be some
explanation;
I don’t imagine things.”

“Well…” Jim said, and hesitated.

“Are you sure you didn’t see them? They didn’t come to the door?”

“Listen…” Jim said, and hesitated again. “Look,” he said.

“I have certainly
never
been the kind of person who goes around imagining that she sees old ladies and children. You know me better than that, Jim, you know I don’t go around—”

“Well,” Jim said. “Look,” he said finally, “there
could
be something. A story I heard. I never told you because—”

“Because what?”

“Because you… well—” Jim said.

“Jim.” Ethel Sloane set her lips. “I don’t like this, Jim. What is there that you haven’t told me? Is there really something you know and I don’t?”

“It’s just a story. I heard it when I came up to look at the house.”

“Do you mean you’ve known something all this time and you’ve never told me?”

“It’s just a story,” Jim said helplessly. Then, looking away, he said, “Everyone knows it, but they don’t say much, I mean, these things—”

“Jim,” Ethel said, “tell me at once.”

“It’s just that there was a little Sanderson boy stolen or lost or something. They thought a crazy old woman took him. People kept talking about it, but they never knew anything for sure.”

“What?” Ethel Sloane stood up and started for the door. “You mean there’s a child been stolen and no one told me about it?”

“No,” Jim said oddly. “I mean, it happened sixty years ago.”

Ethel was still talking about it at breakfast the next morning. “And they’ve never been found,” she told herself happily. “All the people around went searching, and they finally decided the two of them had drowned in the creek, because it was raining then just the way it is now.” She glanced with satisfaction at the rain beating against the window of the breakfast room. “Oh, lovely,” she said, and sighed, and stretched, and smiled. “Ghosts,” she said. “I saw two honest-to-goodness ghosts. No wonder,” she said, “no
wonder
the child looked so awful. Awful! Kidnapped, and then drowned. No
wonder.”