Calamity Town

Lover Come Back

Gabby Warrum, the one-toothed agent at the railroad station, saw Jim Haight get off the train.

Gabby told Emmeline DuPre.

By the time Ed Hotchkiss dropped Jim off at Upham House, where Ma for old times’ sake managed to wangle a bed for him, Emmy DuPre had phoned nearly everyone in town who wasn’t picnicking in Pine Grove or swimming in Slocum Lake.

Opinion, as Mr. Queen ascertained by prowling around town Monday and keeping his steel-trap ears open, was divided. J. C. Pettigrew, Donald Mackenzie, and the rest of the Rotary bunch, who were half-Country Club and half-tradespeople, generally opined that Jim Haight ought to be run out on a rail. The ladies were stoutly against this: Jim was a nice young man; whatever’d happened between him and Nora Wright three years ago wasn’t his fault, you can bet your last year’s bonnet!

Frank Lloyd disappeared. Phinny Baker said his boss had gone off on a hunting trip up in the Mahoganies. Emmeline DuPre sniffed. ”It’s funny Frank Lloyd should go hunting the very next morning after James Haight gets back to Wrightsville. Ran away, of course. That big windbag!” Emmy was disappointed that Frank hadn’t taken one of his deer rifles and gone stalking through the streets of Wrightsville for Jim, like Owen Wister’s Virginian (starring, however, Gary Cooper).

Old Soak Anderson, the town problem, discovered by Mr. Queen Monday noon lying on the stone pedestal of the Low Village World War Memorial, rubbed his salt-and-pepper stubble and declaimed: “

“O most lame and impotent conclusion!’ “

“Are you feeling well this morning, Mr. Anderson?” asked Ellery, concerned.

“Never better, sir. But my point is one with the Proverb, the twenty-sixth, I believe, which states: ‘Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.’ 1 refer, of course, to the reappearance in this accursed community of Jim Haight. Sow the wind, sir; sow the wind!”

The yeast in all this ferment acted strangely. Having returned to Wrightsville, Jim Haight shut himself up in his room at Upham House; he even had his meals served there, according to Ma Upham. Whereas Nora Wright, the prisoner, began to show herself!

Not in public, of course. But on Monday afternoon she watched Pat and Ellery play three sets of tennis on the grass court behind the Wright house, lying in a deck chair in the sun, her eyes protected by dark glasses hooked over her spectacles; and she kept smiling faintly. On Monday evening she strolled over with Pat and a hostile Carter Bradford “to see how you’re coming along with your book, Mr. Smith.” Ellery had Alberta Manaskas serve tea and oatmeal cookies; he treated Nora quite as if she were in the habit of dropping in. And then on Tuesday night . . .

* * *

Tuesday night was bridge night at the Wrights’. Carter Bradford usually came to dinner, and Carter and Pat paired against Hermione and John F.

Hermy thought it might be “nice” to have Mr. Smith in on Tuesday, August twenty-seventh, to make a fifth; and Ellery accepted with alacrity.

“I’d much rather watch tonight,” said Pat. ”Carter dear, you and Pop against Ellery and Mother. I’ll heckle.”

“Come on, come on, we’re losing time,” said John F. ”Stakes, Smith? It’s your option.”

“Makes no difference to me,” said Ellery. ”Suppose I toss the honor over to Bradford.”

“In that case,” said Hermy quickly, “let’s play for a tenth. Carter, why don’t they pay Prosecutors more?” Then she brightened. ”When you’re Governor . . . ”

“Penny a point,” said Carter; his lean face was crimson.

“But Cart, I didn’t mean¯” wailed Hermione.

“If Cart wants to play for a cent, by all means play for a cent,” said Pat firmly. ”I’m sure he’ll win!”

“Hello,” said Nora.

She had not come down to dinner¯Hermy had said something about a “headache.” Now Nora was smiling at them from the foyer. She came in with a basket of knitting and sat down in the big chair under a piano lamp.

“I’m really winning the war for Britain,” she smiled, “all by myself. This is my tenth sweater!”

Mr. and Mrs. Wright exchanged startled glances, and Pat absently began to ruffle Ellery’s hair.

“Play cards,” said Carter in a smothered voice.

The game began under what seemed to Ellery promising circumstances, considering the warm vital hand in his hair and Carter’s out-thrust lower lip. And, in fact, after two rubbers Cart slammed his cards down on the table.

“Why, Cart!” gasped Pat.

“Carter Bradford,” said Hermy, “I neverheard¯”

“What on earth?” said John F., staring at him.

“If you’d stop jumping around, Pat,” cried Carter, “I’d be able to concentrate on this ding-busted game!”

“Jumping around?” said Pat indignantly. ”Cart Bradford, I’ve been sitting here on the arm of Ellery’s chair all evening not saying a word!”

“If you want to play with his beautiful hair,” roared Cart, “why don’t you take him outside under the moon?”

Pat turned the machine-gun of her eyes on him. Then she said contritely to Ellery: “I’m sure you’ll forgive Cart’s bad manners. He’s really had a decent bringing-up, but associating with hardened criminals so much¯”

Nora yelped.

Jim Haight stood in the archway. His Palm Beach suit hung tired and defeated; his shirt was dark with perspiration. He looked like a man who has been running at top speed in a blazing heat without purpose or plan¯just running.

And Nora’s face was a cloud-torn sky.

“Nora.”

The pink in Nora’s cheeks spread and deepened until her face seemed a mirror to flames.

Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.

Nora sprang toward him. For an instant Ellery thought she meant to attack him in a spasm of fury. But then Ellery saw that Nora was not angry; she was in a panic. It was the fright of a woman who had long since surrendered hope of life to live in a suspension of life, a kind of breathing death; it was the fear of joyous rebirth.

Nora darted by Jim and skimmed up the stairs.

Jim Haight looked exultant. Then he ran after her.

And silence.

Living Statues, thought Ellery. He ran his finger between his neck and his collar; it came away dripping.

John F. and Hermy Wright were saying secretive things to each other with their eyes, as a man and woman learn to do who have lived together for thirty years.

Pat kept glaring at the empty foyer, her chest rising and falling visibly; and Carter kept glaring at Pat, as if the thing that was happening between Jim and Nora had somehow become confused in his mind with what was happening between him and Pat.

* * *

Later . . . later there were overhead sounds: the opening of a bedroom door, a slither of feet, steps on stairs.

Nora and Jim appeared in the foyer.

“We’re going to be married,” said Nora. It was as if she were a cold lamp and Jim had touched the button. She glowed from within and gave off a sort of heat.

“Right off,” said Jim. He had a deep defiant voice; it was harsher than he meant, rasped by emery strain. ”Right off!” Jim said. ”Understand?” He was scarlet from the roots of his sandy hair to the chicken skin below his formidable Adam’s apple. But he kept blinking at John F. and Hermy with a dogged, nervous bellicosity.

“Oh, Nora!” cried Pat, and she pounced and kissed Nora’s mouth and began to cry and laugh. Hermy was smiling the stiff smile of a corpse. John F. mumbled, “I’ll be dinged,” and heaved out of his chair and went to his daughter and took her hand, and he took Jim’s hand, just standing there helplessly. Carter said: “It’s high time, you two lunatics!” and slipped his arm about Pat’s waist.

Nora did not cry. She kept looking at her mother.

And then Hermy’s petrifaction broke into little pieces and she ran to Nora, pushing Pat and John F. and Carter aside. She kissed Nora and kissed Jim and said something in a hysterical tone that made no sense but seemed the right thing to say just the same.

Mr. Queen slipped out, feeling a little lonely.