Leave Well Enough Alone (17 page)

Up and down, Baldy’s compact, chunky form rose and fell as she posted with the precision of a Swiss clock. Gabriel trotted swiftly, almost soundlessly over the soft earth ahead of Dorothy and Charley. The sweat poured down Charley’s neck like rain on a window. Dorothy flicked at it with her fingers, but it kept pouring down. Like the rain on the end of the coffin... “Oh Baldy!” Dorothy shouted. She felt her foot slip in the stirrup. “That’s it!”

Baldy whirled around and pulled Gabriel up. “What’s it? Do you want to give me a heart attack?” she asked.

“The coffin!”

“What coffin?”

“The coffin. The baby’s coffin. It was so long that it took up the whole back of Matthew’s station wagon. It wasn’t a baby’s coffin at all. There must have been a grown-up in it.” Flies began to gather on Charley’s ears. He wanted to get started again. Dorothy brushed them away. Why didn’t Baldy say anything? Why was she so still, all of a piece with Gabriel like a civil war statue?

“I think you better stop, Dorothy,” she said at last.

“Stop what?” Dorothy asked, wiping her face on her shirt sleeve.

Baldy had brought her horse up even with Charley’s neck. Dorothy felt Baldy’s strong warm hand play against her own wrist and hold it tightly. “Don’t do this, Dorothy. Leave other people’s skeletons in other people’s closets. I know I’m not smart like you, but I do know one thing. I wouldn’t mess around with that Mr. Hoade. Not for a million bucks. If there’s anything you’re not supposed to know about you better not find it out. Please!” Baldy paused for breath. “We’ve had such a wonderful time riding. I don’t have any friends here, you know. I just want to look forward to what’s left of the summer.”

“You’re right, Baldy,” Dorothy said. “Maybe if I had Ned Nickerson to protect me it would be okay, but I don’t.”

“Who’s he?”

“Nancy Drew’s big strong boyfriend.”

And what a thing to give up, she told herself when they’d gotten out of the narrow path that attracted so many horseflies. They cantered all the way to the top of a hill where Baldy said the view was most spectacular. If I meddle any further in this, Dorothy reasoned, I’ll be fired and packed off home in a big fat hurry. There’s not quite two weeks ʼtil Labor Day. Maybe Mrs. Hoade will let me ride more days instead of paying me extra money. She’s sending the cookbook off to the publisher today. She can afford the time and so can I.

The goldenrod brushed against Charley’s legs and under the bottoms of Dorothy’s boots. At the top of the hill the wind blew, the horses ceased to sweat, and Dorothy pulled her hair back, as it had been plastered to her face with perspiration. “When it’s not so hazy you can see five or six miles,” Baldy told her. The view of the undulating pastures and oblong meadows full of field corn held Dorothy and Baldy speechless on their standing horses for a moment. Then Dorothy sighed and said, “I wish it were all mine, too.”

“Yours, too? It doesn’t belong to me or even to my uncle,” Baldy said in surprise.

“Oh, yes, it does,” said Dorothy.

Dinna had not taken home the pancake-shaped turkey, Mrs. Hoade informed Dorothy when Dorothy came in. However, she had decided to include the recipe in the package anyway. It was now in the mail, Mrs. Hoade went on to say with a positive twinkle in her eyes. There had been a call from Dorothy’s sister, Mrs. Hoade added.

Dorothy pulled off her boots in the kitchen. She groaned. “Maureen? I wonder what she wants now. I hope Mom and Dad are okay.”

“I expect they are,” said Mrs. Hoade. “Dinna took the message.” She peered at the greasy slip of paper with the dreadful handwriting. “Everything is hunky-dory. E.M.O.S.H.,” she read, “that makes no sense. Must be a misspelling. Well, it doesn’t seem to be much of an emergency. Now, get the girls washed up. We’ll have turkey croquettes tonight, dear,” said Mrs. Hoade, downing the rest of a large Scotch and pouring herself another.

Dorothy frowned at the telephone message as she climbed the stairs. Emosh? She smiled. Of course it wasn’t Maureen. E.M.O.S.H. Elizabeth Macintosh, Order of the Sacred Heart. If Dorothy hadn’t known it was impossible, she would have imagined Sister was having fun with gangster movie words like hunky-dory and sit tight and her own encoded initials.

Mr. Hoade was changing his shirt in his bedroom as Dorothy went by. “Get your message?” he asked as he buttoned the third button down.

Dorothy shivered a little at his voice. “Yes, Mr. Hoade,” she answered.

“I happened to pick up the extension at the pool,” he said smoothly, “same time as Dinna picked it up in the kitchen.” He looked at himself in the mirror for an instant. “Dinna thought it was your sister, but it wasn’t. It was a nun, wasn’t it?”

Dorothy crumpled the paper in her hand. She hoped Sister Elizabeth had said nothing more than hunky-dory. “Yes, my English teacher,” Dorothy managed to stutter.

“Oh,” said Mr. Hoade. He closed the door softly in Dorothy’s face. “You don’t mind? I’m changing my pants,” he said, with a chuckle that Dorothy didn’t particularly like.

“Time to get washed up for supper, girls!” Dorothy called into the library. “Mom says just a few minutes.”

“Uhm” was the reply. It would, of course, be at least an hour before Mrs. Hoade had anything ready. The girls seemed to know this as well as Dorothy. I have time to write to Kate, she thought. Poor Kate must think I’m dead. I haven’t had a chance to write for the whole summer.

Dear Katey
, she began,
I’ve been so busy every second that I haven’t had a minute to write (or do much summer reading either).
Dorothy stared out her bedroom window into the leaves of the oak tree that stood outside. How far away Kate seemed to be from this spot.
I’ve been helping the lady I work for write a cookbook. You won’t believe it but even I am a little more organized than she is. My name is going to go into it in print. Won’t that knock Sister Elizabeth out!
Surely Sister had not said much more than hunky-dory. Surely Mr. Hoade had overheard nothing. Why would Sister even mention a labor union to Dinna?
You won’t believe this either but these people have the most fabulous parties. Every week I have to order at least two hundred bucks worth of food and booze over the phone. I’ve never seen a hundred dollar bill before. I’ve actually paid out one or two hundred every time the caterer delivers, because Mrs. H. doesn’t trust the maid with the change.
Why would he show such interest in a silly phone call? Particularly if everything was hunky-dory, as Sister had said. I’ll just have to find a way of calling Sister back. All the phones are on this one line though.
The best thing about the whole summer is riding horseback. ME! The girl I ride with is very rich. She owns a horse. Can you imagine! We go all over the countryside, which is gorgeous. Even
m
ore beautiful than the Catskills.
The simple explanation for them using such a big coffin is that they probably couldn’t get a little one this far out in the country.
You’ll never guess who your best buddy met last week at one of the parties. Desi Arnaz! He’s a gambling friend of Mr. H. I don’t like Mr. H. one bit. He gives me the creeps.
The reason I was told not to go out to the cottage is that the surrounding area is full of rotting timbers, rusty nails, and snakes.
You remember how we always talked about marrying millionaires and having dinner in the Waldorf Astoria? Well, these people have all the money in the world. This lady did just that. I can tell. She married for money and wait ʼtil I tell you how that works out. Of course it would be different with David Niven or somebody.
But there really aren’t any rotting timbers, rusty bits of iron, or snakes down there. There’s only a fairly substantial cellar.
Anyhow, tell you all in September. Take care of yourself. Love, Dot.
Sister Elizabeth was much too smart to let the cat out of the bag on the telephone. Dorothy folded the letter and licked the envelope. No, there was just nothing to worry about.

Of course Dorothy was hot and tired after she had done all that big pile of dishes. Mrs. Hoade had used every pot and pan in the kitchen again to make her turkey croquettes. She didn’t mind in the least if Dorothy went out to the mailbox on Route 8 to post her letter, and if she took a swim on the way back. Mrs. Hoade seemed unusually preoccupied that evening; perhaps with no guests and only Mr. Hoade to contend with, she was not very happy. At nine o’clock, Dorothy dried the last dish, changed into her bathing suit, and letter in hand walked down the driveway to the road.

She could see only the bulky shape of the cottage, a square of blackness, blacker than the woods that surrounded it. If they hadn’t turned off the telephone down there, the call to Sister Elizabeth would be easy. Mrs. Hoade had never buzzed the phone in the cottage, she’d given the number to the operator. That meant a separate line.

Dorothy felt for the door handle. She gave the door a push as she depressed the latch. It opened so easily that she nearly tumbled in upon the door. The darkness in the little house surrounded her like a muff. Holding on to the wall with one hand, she rotated the other in wobbly circles to find a telephone, or at least a light switch. A light would not be seen at the big house, as the windows had been shuttered over on that side. Her fingers touched the top of a silk lampshade. She steadied it. Then the palm of her hand came directly on the soft lips of a human mouth.

D
OROTHY FOUND HERSELF GRASPING
the side of Miss Borg’s bed, kneeling and then crouching beside it as if the walls at any moment might cave in around her. When Miss Borg had shouted whatever she was shouting in German for the third time, Dorothy managed to open her eyes and say, “I’m so sorry, Miss Borg. I didn’t know you were still here. Please, I’m so sorry.”

“Was machst du hier?”
Miss Borg repeated. She hoisted herself upright against her pillow and began fussing with her hair. She used little bits of colored cloth as curlers, Dorothy noticed, and she wore a winter nightgown of white flannel. Some of the fright had left Miss Borg’s eyes.
“Gott im Himmel!”
she said in a grumpy voice.

“I’ll go right now, Miss Borg,” said Dorothy, pulling herself up to a standing position. She was about to back out the door when Miss Borg kicked aside her covers and strode over to the kitchen asking,
“Etwas Kaffee?”

That sounded like coffee. Dorothy reckoned she’d better sit down and accept some hospitality, or Miss Borg, whatever her reason for staying on, might be further insulted and would be sure to tell Mrs. Hoade, perhaps Mr. Hoade.

“Yes, thank you,” Dorothy answered, sitting on the bed. The kitchen was as tiny and efficient as a ship’s galley.
“Was willst du von mir?”
Miss Borg asked, taking a small jar of Sanka from the shelf and putting a miniature kettle on to boil.

“Excuse me?” asked Dorothy.

“Was willst du von mir? Was?”
Miss Borg asked again, more slowly.

Was
was the word she’d used before, the day Dorothy had come down to the cottage in search of Lisa. Well, of course she must be wondering what I want, Dorothy reasoned. “I want to use the telephone,” she said. “I want to call up a nun,” she added, noticing that Miss Borg wore a small silver crucifix around her neck. “A nun...a”—What is the Latin for nun? Maybe she knows Latin—“
Nonna
.”

“
Nonne
?” asked Miss Borg, pointing to the cross around Dorothy’s neck.
“Du wolltest mit einer Nonne telefonierien?”

“May I make a telephone call to a convent?” Dorothy asked again. Miss Borg looked at her peculiarly. She motioned that Dorothy might use the telephone. Then she spooned two teaspoons of the coffee into the cups.

“Oh, thank you, so much,” said Dorothy as earnestly as she could with as big a smile as she could manage. After a very long wait and several switchings of extensions, Sister’s voice crackled through the receiver.

“I stayed up in the library, Dorothy,” Sister said. “In case you called back. Everything’s all right with your union, you know. Nothing to worry about.”

“Thank you, Sister. You didn’t say anything about unions over the phone this afternoon, by any chance?”

“Most certainly not. I know what an elementary precaution is, after all. So it seems your Mr. Hoade was only a bit crude. However, he was not lying.”

“I guessed so, Sister. I found Miss Borg, by the way,” Dorothy said with a smile at Miss Borg. Miss Borg smiled back with comprehension. “I’m right in the cottage now. She’s making me a cup of coffee.”

“Wonderful! So you see?” Sister laughed a little. “People aren’t as awful as all that. We should remember to leave this sort of intrigue for the gothic writers. So it was a baby after all and the nurse is staying on until she finds another position?”

“That must be it, Sister. The nurse only speaks German so I can’t really ask her.”

“Deutsch,” said Miss Borg pleasantly, stirring the coffee.

“A difficult language,” Sister went on. “At any rate, Dorothy, although I admit to being attracted to melodrama, I am relieved at what you say. I shouldn’t want any of my students to come to a violent end.”

“No, Sister,” said Dorothy.

“However,” Sister Elizabeth continued, “had you found yourself in a position that could have been described as unsavory, I’m sure you would have faced it with equanimity. An unsafe position you would have faced with courage. Any of my students would have done. ‘Courage mounteth with occasion.’ That’s
King John.
You’ll have it senior year.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Was there anything else?”

“Not really, Sister. I didn’t tell you that they buried the baby in an adult-size coffin. I guess they could only get a regular size one out here in the country. But there was something you said over the phone this morning, something that didn’t fit in?”

“No doubt there’s a mundane explanation for the coffin size,” said Sister Elizabeth slowly. “No, this morning I was only thinking of a name. Your employer’s maiden name. Krasilovsky. It reminded me of the back of my father’s store. That’s because he had a safe there, which he allowed me to open every morning before school. The brand name on the safe was Krasilovsky, and if you gave me a day I could probably remember the combination, as I did it every morning for seven years. Oh, dear. My memory is not what it was. At any rate, you are all right and whatever her name in the grave is, is resting in peace?”