The Sundial (12 page)

“Naturally,” Miss Inverness said. “She took a great pleasure in our new little china dogs, made in Italy, you know. Such a
careful
child. She was really quite
quite
taken with them.”

“You must see them,” Miss Deborah said. “Miss Halloran, you positively must see our new little dogs. The Italians do these things so colorfully, I always think. Dear little Fancy was positively enchanted. I think she was particularly taken with a dear little blue poodle, sister?”

“Such an engaging toy,” Miss Inverness said.

“Dare I take Fancy a little something?” Miss Ogilvie said to Aunt Fanny. “Do you think it might be . . . perhaps . . . a little consolation to her?”

“Children are so easily comforted,” Miss Inverness said, and Miss Deborah said, “Poor child, some small pleasure might mean everything in the world to her right now.”

“We’ll certainly take it to her,” Aunt Fanny said. “And we are interested, Miss Inverness, in books.”

“Of course,” Miss Inverness said. “Something to read?”

“Light, please,” Miss Ogilvie said. “Some cheerful light reading. It’s only to pass the time. So difficult, just waiting,” she explained to Miss Deborah.

Miss Inverness laughed roguishly. “I know better than to offer Miss Halloran most of the poor things they are publishing today. There are, however, some few really
excellent
books, some I can honestly recommend, I mean. Some I have read myself, and so has my sister.”

“We had better take several,” Miss Ogilvie said. “We have no idea how long we will have to wait.”

“I see,” said Miss Inverness. “Then you would naturally need several.”

“
I
want,” Aunt Fanny said, “at least one book on surviving in the wilds.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Inverness, and Miss Deborah said, after a moment,
“Surviving?”

“A book which would tell how to build a fire and how to catch animals for food. A certain amount of first aid, too, I expect. Such information as that.”

“I can hardly begin to think—” Miss Inverness began.

“A Boy Scout Handbook,” Miss Ogilvie said unexpectedly. “I used to have a brother,” she confided in Miss Deborah.

Miss Inverness breathed again. “For Fancy,” she said.
“Naturally.”

“To comfort her,” Miss Deborah said.

“And,” said Aunt Fanny, “I would like, if possible, a fairly elementary book on engineering, and chemicals, and perhaps the various uses of herbs. Perhaps an encyclopedia.”

“Well, now,” said Miss Inverness, “I
know
that we would not have an
encyclopedia
. Perhaps the library in the big house . . .”

“It’s fairly old,” Aunt Fanny said. “No really
new
information. Physics, you know, and politics. I wonder if we have time to order a new one.”

“But what would little Fancy want with an encyclopedia?” Miss Deborah wondered. “Are you going to send her to school?”

“I was not brought up to be evasive, Miss Deborah,” Aunt Fanny said. “I have immediate need for a good deal of practical information on primitive living. Survival. I have no way of knowing what we may be called upon to do for ourselves.”

“Aunt Fanny,” Miss Ogilvie said, “Miss Inverness and Miss Deborah have always been so kind . . . so thoughtful. Would it not be an act of friendship to include them in our future?”

“I confess I had thought of it,” Aunt Fanny said. “But I do not think it will offend Caroline or Deborah if I point out, frankly, that our need will be for more sturdy, more
rugged
personalities. Remember, our little group must include builders and workers as well as—” she blushed faintly—“the mothers of future generations.”

“I am sure,” Miss Inverness said with some stiffness, “that neither my sister nor myself has any desire to be looked upon as a worker, and it is long since we gave up any notion of breeding children. I am astonished, Frances Halloran, to hear you talk so coarsely. I would not have expected it, not in front of my sister.”

“I apologize,” said Aunt Fanny, who could afford to be mild. She turned to Miss Ogilvie. “You see,” she said, “it is not fair to
them
. We need a different kind of person altogether.”

“If your needs are what they seem to be,” Miss Inverness said, not altogether mollified, “I assure you that my sister and myself must refuse, most firmly, to be included in any way whatsoever.”

“Caroline, dear,” Miss Deborah said gently.

“I am sorry,” Miss Ogilvie said. “I should never have said anything at all. It was only because one so rarely meets congenial persons, really congenial, and I thought it would be a shame to lose Miss Inverness and Miss Deborah as friends. I am sure they have always been
most
respectable, and it will be sad to think of them after they are gone.”

“Our mother brought us up to be respectable, I hope, Miss Ogilvie. I will get your Boy Scout Handbook.”

Still contrite, Aunt Fanny selected half a dozen novels, the blue poodle for Fancy, and a shell ashtray for Essex. Miss Deborah made everything into a neat package, which was left in the shop for Julia to gather in later when she came back with the car. Miss Inverness was cool in her farewell to Aunt Fanny, and gave Miss Ogilvie only a small bow; Miss Deborah accompanied them to the door of the shop, troubled and civil, and opened the door for them, the faint musical tinkle of the door-bells for a moment overriding her voice before her sister called her sharply.

On the sidewalk outside the shop Miss Ogilvie said, “Well, I’m happy to think that we will probably never go in
there
again. I think Miss Inverness has gotten very crotchety.”

“Like her mother,” Aunt Fanny said. “Candles,” she said, “candles. I forgot candles.”

“Then I’ll just run in and have a cup of coffee, dear,” Miss Ogilvie said. “In the drug store, because they look at you so strangely in the Inn when you only order coffee.”

“Don’t
talk
to anyone,” Aunt Fanny said. “Put out of your mind any ideas except that we have come into the village for a morning’s shopping. I will meet you here in fifteen minutes, and I beg of you to be silent about the future.”

“Naturally,” Miss Ogilvie said placidly. “It’s so difficult for me to describe, anyway.”

The drug store, like every other store in the village, sold an enormous variety of goods; no storekeeper in the village found himself able to exist on the marketing of any single commodity; the grocer sold light bulbs and paper supplies, the antique shop carried a sideline of homemade candies and jellies, the hardware store sold toys and newspapers, and the drug store sold them all, besides cigarettes, paperback books, and an unending series of chemicals at its soda fountain. Miss Ogilvie, easing herself gracelessly onto a high stool at the soda fountain, found herself alone in the store except for the soda fountain clerk, a young man with poor hair and pimples, leaning listlessly against a sign showing a tempting chicken salad sandwich adorned with pickles and potato chips; “You want something?” the young man said, picking at his cheek.

Miss Ogilvie sighed happily. “Peach pie,” she said, “with chocolate ice cream on top.” It was only half-past ten, and luncheon at the big house was not served until one. Miss Ogilvie made a series of small wriggling gestures in order to straighten out her skirt under her, and set her pocketbook on the counter next to her and cleared away an obtrusive ashtray and a container of paper napkins. When the young man set the peach pie with chocolate ice cream on top in front of her Miss Ogilvie smiled at it, and then, congratulatingly, at the young man.

“One of the things I
am
going to miss,” she said confidentially, “is fancy food.”

The young man let his eye rest briefly on the peach pie, and retired to lean once more against the chicken salad sandwich. “Don’t care much for pie, myself,” he said. “Cake’s more my line.”

Miss Ogilvie snapped her fingers in sudden irritation. “I forgot,” she said, “I completely forgot; I was so sure I was going to remember to tell Aunt Fanny to get lots and
lots
of those prepared cake mixes. They’re so much easier, and it’s hard to think how we’d get any baking done, otherwise.”

“Or cookies,” the young man said. “Lots of people like cookies.”

“And blueberry muffins,” Miss Ogilvie said. “Dear heavens, I hope I remember to remind Aunt Fanny when I see her.”

“Working in a place like this,” the young man said, “you’d think I’d be crazy about ice cream. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well,
that
’s one thing we can’t take,” Miss Ogilvie said. “It would melt,” she explained. “Since I suppose the electricity will all go off, and then the refrigerator won’t stay cold.”

“The electricity don’t go off,” the young man said. “This time of year, with no storms, the electricity stays on without any trouble. My brother’s on the lines, he’d tell me.”

“But of course,” Miss Ogilvie said, wide-eyed, “
that
night the buildings will be gone. The places they send the electricity
from
, I mean. And of course the wires.”

“What night?” the young man asked idly.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I guess it’s all right to tell
you
, so you can tell your brother that it won’t be any use.” Miss Ogilvie swallowed a piece of peach pie. “Aunt Fanny told us all about it. It’s coming very soon. Fire and floods and sidewalks melting away and the earth running with boiling lava and all the poor people trying to get away.” She sighed, and looked down at her pie with sympathy. “All over the world,” she said, “
everywhere
. And in the morning there will be nothing left. I suppose it’s very hard for you to picture it, but there will be simply nothing; we will look out of the windows—that’s all of us, in the big house, not
you
, I am afraid, and I am really terribly sorry. But we will all look out the windows and in all the world there will be nothing but drying earth, with the grass beginning to grow. All the houses and people and automobiles and everything will be just melted away.” She sighed again. “I just don’t know how we’re going to make our coffee that first morning,” she said. “I suppose we will have to build a little fire somehow. Kindling,” she said. “I will tell Aunt Fanny to get kindling.”

“You want to be careful, starting fires,” the young man said. “It’s pretty dry this time of year.”

Miss Ogilvie stared. “You don’t understand,” she said. “There won’t be anything left to burn.”

The young man thought deeply. “You saying,” he asked at last, “that the day of Armageddon is coming? Like that?”

“I think so,” Miss Ogilvie said uncertainly.

“Like where it says in the Bible the day of Last Judgment? The final trump?”

“I think that’s different,” Miss Ogilvie said. “I mean, the
rest
of you—”

“My ma, she talks like that. She’s got this club, the True Believers, they call theirselves. They
all
talk like that. Got people coming over from the city to meet with them,
they
talk like that too.”

“You mean there are others?” Miss Ogilvie said, barely breathing.

“The True Believers is what they call theirselves. I listen sometimes, me and my brother, the one I was telling you about; he’s on the lines. He says to me, ‘Don’t you believe it, bud, I see enough electricity to know it’s scientifically impossible.
Scientifically
impossible. Let them talk,’ he says, ‘they got nothing else to do. But don’t you get taken in, because them scientific fellows have proved that the world didn’t start the way they say, and it ain’t going to end the way they say either. Protons and neutrons—that’s the answer. Electric force.’”

“These True Believers,” Miss Ogilvie asked anxiously, “how many of them are there?”

“Ten, maybe. They meet and get messages from the spirit world. Ma’s got a control named Liliokawani, used to be a Egyptian queen. Tells her things.” He laughed richly. “Liliokawani,” he said. “Boy, did they use to live it up, those Egyptian queens.”

Miss Ogilvie pushed her peach pie away suddenly. “Ten
more
,” she said. “I better go right away and find Aunt Fanny and tell her. I’m not sure she’s going to be pleased. We thought,” she explained, “that it was just going to be
us
, just our little circle. We really get along quite well together, so congenial and all, and so refined and everything, and now strangers . . .” She slid hastily off the stool.

“I’ll tell Ma you was asking,” the young man said. “That’ll be a quarter for the pie and fifteen more for the ice cream.”

_____

“My father,” said Aunt Fanny, “was beyond all things a democratic man. He believed in encouraging the villagers in every possible manner, although I do not recall that he ever mingled among them socially. I cannot picture him visiting this young man’s mother. She may easily have been deceived.”

“The young man himself was quite positive about it,” Miss Ogilvie said miserably. “But really—ten extra people, and we had counted
so
on being alone.”

“I do not see that we need bother about it further,” Aunt Fanny said. “I am quite positive that my father would agree with me.” Her voice went vague; she was looking across the street toward the spot where the bus stopped, bringing Harriet Stuart’s visitors, or an occasional traveller interested in dining at the Carriage Stop Inn, or an elderly person come to count the number of people still alive in the village. Mr. Devers, the postman, had gotten off the bus today, because as everyone in the village knew he had gone yesterday to the city to see his only son off for the army, and now Mr. Devers was standing on the corner with his suitcase talking to a stranger. Aunt Fanny was looking at the stranger.

_____

Yes, the stranger agreed over tea and sandwiches at the Carriage Stop Inn, yes, he was a stranger. His tone implied that in faraway villages all over the world he was well-known, and a stranger in this village only. He hinted at himself striding recognized down exotic streets, walking in sandals through dust, moving slowly behind an oxcart or a rickshaw or a dog-sled, kicking aside the encumbrance of a cashmere robe, a furred cloak, shading his eyes from the sun, sheltering his head from the snow, regarding unmoved typhoon and flood, seeing with familiarity such scenes as the quiet eye could not envisage, laughing and looking easily and speaking intimately in strange tongues; yes, he agreed, he was a stranger. It was not possible even for Aunt Fanny to ask where he was from, but Aunt Fanny asked where he was going, as if she had not known when she saw him standing by the bus.