The Rose Garden (14 page)

To calm herself, she admired her reflection in the mirror on the wall. The beige gabardine suit was a nice fit. The copper-colored straw hat was nearly a match for her bushy hair, and the crimson poppies she had tacked around the crown did away with any danger of sameness. Her slippery nylon gloves were about the same green as the stems of the poppies, and she had a shiny green plastic bag hanging from her arm, and matching green sandals with delicate straps that wound twice around her bony ankles.

Stasia was forty-seven, with a pointed white face and very large ears. Somebody had once complimented her on her merry Irish eyes, and she had endeavored to live up to the remark ever since, rolling her eyes enthusiastically until it became a habit, and showing that she, at any rate, knew what was going on in the room and behind the scenes, even when there was nothing going on at all. Stasia's merry, knowing looks frightened some of her employers and irritated others. Stasia didn't care. “Some people have no sense of humor,” she would say when she lost a job. She always got very good references, and then, too, as she said herself, she had the real Irish sense of humor, and there were very few could stand up against it. Stasia was famous for her sense of humor, which she brandished like a tomahawk. And she was a great storyteller. All the maids were agreed on that. Nobody could tell a story like Stasia. And the funny faces she made. Stasia was a scream.

Stasia didn't exactly tire of admiring herself in the mirror, but the silence in the house began to get on her nerves. Still no sound from upstairs, but they might start stirring around at any minute. Stasia tiptoed across the hall and, for the eighth time that morning, she opened the living-room door a crack and peered in. There on the sofa, stretched out flat with her shoes still on her feet, lay Miss Phoebe Carter, in sleep so deep that it might have been coma. Poor, pretty, high-voiced Miss Carter, so snippy and sure of herself when she first waltzed into the house last night on Mr. Tillbright's arm, so to speak. Stasia's smile as she regarded Miss Carter was not entirely without sympathy. Uninvited guests must expect what they get, of course, but this was a hard lesson. That rustly cocktail dress isn't going to be worth much when you get up off that sofa, Stasia thought, and removed her gaze to the steak that lay on the carpet, some distance from the fireplace. It was a huge steak, and thick, and it had been juicy. The carpet showed darkly how full of juice the steak had been before being rudely tumbled from its platter, which lay, right side up, well within the island of grease, which seemed to Stasia to have spread since the last time she looked. And how could I have gone in there to start cleaning up, with the young lady asleep on the sofa there, she thought, rehearsing for Mrs. Tillbright. Pretty, sweet, fluffy Mrs. Tillbright, she wouldn't be feeling so pleased with herself this morning. Stasia closed the door carefully, shutting Miss Carter in, saving her, with any luck, until the rest of them roused themselves to come downstairs and find her.

The bus should be here now, even allowing for a minute or so's delay on account of the rain. Stasia opened the front door and peered out. No sign of the bus, and the rain was coming down heavier. A pity about the rain. The old umbrella would be a nuisance. She turned back into the hall and saw Mr. Tillbright on the stairs. The shock of seeing him suddenly like that made Stasia
think she was perhaps imagining things. But it was Mr. Tillbright, all right, dressed in the same pin-stripe suit he had worn to town yesterday, but without a tie. He was carrying his shoes in his hand, and bringing himself downstairs very tenderly, one step at a time. He hadn't seen Stasia.

“Good morning, Mr. Tillbright,” Stasia said cheerily. “Isn't it a terrible day?”

Mr. Tillbright did not speak until he was safely on the hall floor.

“I have to get back to town,” he said then. “Very urgent. Call just came through. Tell Mrs. Tillbright, will you? I'll stay in town overnight. Tell her I'll call her from the hotel.”

“And what hotel will I say?” Stasia asked.

“I said
I'll
call
her,
” Mr. Tillbright snarled.

Trying to run away, eh, Stasia thought, and she watched him fumble with the quaint little wall cupboard in which the car keys were kept. She said nothing, and after a minute or so he spoke, without turning around to look at her. No manners, none of them have any manners, Stasia thought good-humoredly.

“Have you any idea where the keys of my car might be?” he asked.

“Well, don't you remember, Mr. Tillbright? Mrs. Tillbright collected up all the car keys last night and said she was going to put them in a safe place. Your car's keys and her car's keys, and I believe she got hold of Mrs. Lamb's car's keys. While she was at it, you know. She thought all the keys ought to be together, she said. She said as long as none of you were going out last night, the keys ought to be out of harm's way. Of course she didn't know then that you'd be having to go to the office so early on a Sunday morning.”

Mr. Tillbright said, “Since you know so much, perhaps you know where Mrs. Tillbright put the keys.”

“I don't know where she put them,” Stasia responded, with
dignity, “but I think they should be someplace in the bedroom. She was going to the bedroom when I saw her with them in her hand.”

Mr. Tillbright sat down suddenly on the bottom step of the stairs. “I've simply got to get out of this house today,” he said, into his long, well-kept hands. “I've got to get in to town.”

He stood up as suddenly as he had sat down, and turned around and started back up the stairs. He was still in his stocking feet. Well, you're in a bad way, all right, Stasia said to herself, and heard the bus pull up outside.

She clambered into the bus backward and bent, because she was trying to shut her umbrella and save her hat and get her heels on solid board all at the same time. She plumped herself down beside Delia Murphy, who smiled and nodded, under a platter of blue cornflowers.

“Delia, Delia,” said Stasia, “do you know what happened?”

“What happened, Stasia?” Delia asked, and the other maids stopped talking for the moment and began to listen, on the chance that Stasia had something worth hearing.

“Oh, you'll never in your life guess what that crowd did last night!” Stasia said, all of a sudden unwilling to part with her precious story. But she had to go on. Thirty-eight Irish noses were pointed at her in implacable demand. There was no stopping now. With a shrill crow of joy, Stasia plunged.

“They uncovered a fireplace in the kitchen!” she cried. “A bricked-up fireplace. Behind the stove. Behind the
stove.
They tore out the stove, and there's a hole as big as a coffin in the wall, with bricks falling out of it, and wires hanging out of it, miles of wires—you never saw the like of it. And the floor all covered with dirt and dust and bits of plaster and lumps of mortar. If a bomb had hit it, it couldn't look worse.”

The maids exchanged glances of incredulous pleasure. They
never ceased to marvel at the interest their employers took in their old houses and their old windows and walls and floorboards and doors and cupboards, and in their old fireplaces, of which there could never be too many, apparently, dirty and troublesome as they were, and unnecessary, too, with the central heating.

“Are they out of their minds, or what,” Delia asked, “destroying the kitchen like that?”

Stasia looked mischievous. “Didn't Mrs. Tillbright find out that his first wife, the first Mrs. Tillbright, had the fireplace in the kitchen blocked up, and he never said a word to
her
about it when
she
came to move in, and when she found out about it last night she flew into a rage and insisted that he tear out the side of the kitchen. ‘Me fireplace!' she kept screeching. ‘I want me fireplace in me kitchen and I want it now, do you hear me,
now.
' ”

“Of course they were—having something to drink?” said Alice Flaherty, leaning forward in her seat, which was behind Stasia's.

“Drinking like horses,” Stasia said. “They'd been at it all day, too. Well, I know Mrs. Tillbright and that Mrs. Lamb had been at it from five o'clock on, because I was there in the house with them. Mr. Tillbright and this Miss Carter didn't turn up till seven, and a child could see they'd had a few—more than a few—by the look of them.”

“You're driving us mad, Stasia,” Delia said. “Will you go back and begin at the beginning? How did Mrs. Tillbright find out about the fireplace being in the kitchen?
He
didn't tell her, did he?”

“Not
he,
” Stasia said. “It all started when Mr. Tillbright brought this Miss Carter home for dinner—walked into the house with her, bold as brass, and not after telephoning to say could she come or anything. Well, Mrs. Tillbright was as mad as a hatter. She had invited this Mrs. Lamb out to spend the night, Saturday night, last night, and Mr. Tillbright knew that. Mrs. Tillbright would
have been provoked enough if she'd been there by herself when he landed in with the girl, but to have this Mrs. Lamb see it, Mrs. Tillbright was fit to be tied. She doesn't really
like
Mrs. Lamb. It seems, or so I gather, Mrs. Lamb used to be a great
friend
of Mr. Tillbright. I don't know when. Since this one married him, for all I know. Anyway, Mrs. Lamb knew Mr. Tillbright's first wife. And Mrs. Tillbright only invited her out for the weekend to show her all the changes she'd made in the house, and what a fine place it is now, and all, and how happy herself and Mr. Tillbright are together. Oh, Lord—” Stasia was overcome with amusement. “How happy they are, and all!” she cried, and the maids nodded and laughed along with her.

“This Mrs. Lamb just got a divorce, you see,” Stasia went on, in a lower voice, “and Mrs. Tillbright said to him, ‘Oh, we must have poor dear Norma out for the weekend and cheer her up.' Cheer her up, is it, I thought to meself. Of course, what she was thinking was, Kill two birds with the one stone, have her out here and show off in front of her, and at the same time discourage him from any notion he might have of cheering Mrs. Lamb up on his own. Well, Mrs. Lamb arrived out yesterday evening around five, in this little bright-blue convertible, the sort of car a kid would have, but certainly not at all suitable for a woman her age. ‘A parting gift from Leo, darling,' she says, patting the car, and she and Mrs. Tillbright give each other a kiss.

“‘Darling Norma,' says Mrs. Tillbright, ‘how does it feel to be free?' ‘Divine, simply heaven, so it is,' says Mrs. Lamb. ‘You must try it sometime, Debbie. But then you and Harry are so comfy together, aren't you, dear? So—well, domesticated. I do hope you don't find it dull.' ‘Oh no, we don't find it dull at all,' Mrs. Tillbright says, very soft, with one of them little secret smiles. Mrs. Lamb gave her a
look,
and I gave a little secret smile meself, thinking about the racket they kicked up the other night—Wednesday
night it was—over Mr. Tillbright leaving his clothes strewn all over the bedroom and the bathroom, awful untidy habits he has, I can't blame her.

“Well, the next thing, Mrs. Lamb flounces into the house as if she owns it. You can see that every stitch she has on her is brand-new, just bought for the weekend—a little pointed yellow hat and pointed yellow bootees, and she's no spring chicken, you know.

“Well, she stood stock-still in the hall. ‘Where's Harry?' she says. Mrs. Tillbright gives a nasty little laugh. ‘Don't sound so disappointed, darling,' she says. ‘Harry'll be here, don't worry. He had to run into town to see a client.' ‘On a Saturday?' says Mrs. Lamb. ‘That's not the Harry I knew. Or is it? Dear Harry. He's such a darling. But so unreliable, isn't he? You must be careful not to hold him on too tight a rein, Debbie darling. Just be patient. He'll grow up. It just takes some men longer than others, that's all.' ‘Let's go upstairs, shall we?' says Mrs. Tillbright. ‘I want to show you your room,' she says.

“Up the stairs we go, me bringing up the rear and carrying the bag Mrs. Lamb had brought along, heavy as lead it was. ‘Oh, our bedroom door is open,' says Mrs. Tillbright when she got to the top of the stairs, and she goes across the landing and stands looking into her own bedroom as if she'd never set eyes on it before. And how else would it be but open, I thought, and you breaking your neck upstairs to open it when you heard the car coming.

“‘Wouldn't you like to see our little nest, darling?' she says, all quaint like. ‘Harry adores this view,' she says, running into the room and across to the window. ‘Come see,' she says, dragging Mrs. Lamb after her by main force. ‘We had the bed made special,' she says. ‘And this is Harry's very own armchair,' she says, ‘for, you know, I'm dreadfully lazy. I'm ashamed to say it, but I am. And best of anything in the world I like to lie in bed on Sunday morning,' she says, shy, you know. ‘And Harry must keep me
company at breakfast, he won't have it any other way. I just have a cup of black coffee without sugar,' she says, ‘and Stasia brings his big breakfast up, kippers or bacon and eggs, finnan haddie, lamb chops, whatever he fancies—Stasia and I like to pamper him a little, he always had such a barren sort of life, poor baby—and he sits there in his chair by the window and glances at the paper and reads me little bits out of it. And we chat—oh, you know,' she says. ‘Sometimes we don't even get downstairs till lunchtime,' she says. ‘It's scandalous, really.' And she gives a great laugh.