Chapter 10

WELL, finally that "adjustment and harmonization" that Nature with a touch of this and a touch of that mixes up and spreads out thin took place in the little household that at moments had felt itself marked for destruction, at least something special. Gradually the anesthesia of routine, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, hunger and thirst almost rhythmically appeased and quenched, even the movement of bowels and releasing of bladders occupying their attentions; daily baths, housekeeping, daydreaming and nightmares, waking and sleeping, mollified and soothed the aches and pains of these present and a pleasant loss of memory, almost, enabled them to plan ahead and hope for the best. Poor dears. Maisie, magna cum laude, was a hundred and really adept but the others, it looked as if, kept accenting the wrong note, not knowing, one supposes, as Maisie seemed to, the tune.

And that is how June came and Paula, radiant, and Ian, handsome and manly, were married without any fuss, things being as they were. No one noticed that the bride's father wasn't there to give her away or that the flower girl was missing (that little Janey, "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"). Maisie scarcely marked the hour, it meant nothing to her.

"I think," said Maisie at the supper table, "I will be leaving you all for a spell."

Glances shot from eye to eye and Lamby cleared her throat.

"Lamby," said Maisie, "the spittoon is in the study, we do not expectorate at table."

Lamby flushed; something said inside her, "This is it, I'll be goddamned if I'll take any more of it!"

"Oh, Ma-Ma!" said Sissy, sorry for Lamby, who she saw was trembling.

"If you will all mind your manners and not interrupt me," said Maisie.

"Yes, Ma-Ma."

"I am going to Cokeysville for a visit with Cousin Graceful."

Everyone had felt for an instant that Maisie had meant to announce her everlasting departure and with the exception of Ian who smiled with relief at her realistic itinerary no one could help being disappointed, a Little at least. Sissy bit her lip and was ashamed, but Lamby said to herself, "Shit."

"Ma-Ma," said Sissy, "I think you are quite right."

"Oh you do," said Maisie sarcastically.

"The trains are very comfortable," said Sissy. She thought it would do no harm for the old lady to plan a little trip which, of course, she would never take. She had no idea where Cokeysville was although she did know that Cousin Graceful was long since dead. "I will get a timetable," she said, "and we will pack your little overnight bag." She hated herself for the second of relief she had felt a moment ago at what she thought was one of the old lady's premonitions and she meant to make up to her for it.

"A timetable?" said Maisie.

"It tells what time the trains leave," said Sissy gently.

"I'll travel in my own way," said Maisie, "by the stage, and I'll take my hamper and pelisse."

"Oh."

"Unless," she said archly-the corners of her mouth turned up and a mauve flush mounted to her cheeks, the little dark-blue veins crossing her temples stood out, "I go in a rocket ship!"

"Think they can fool me!" she thought to herself. "Engines, indeed! Not for twenty years!"

"Well," she said, "any objections?"

"Granny," said Paula sweetly, "maybe in twenty years you will."

"Just as I said, just as I said. Humph!" she added. "What makes Paula so smart," she thought. She felt as if Paula somehow had detracted from her deduction. "Too much lipstick, miss," she said.

Maisie glanced at Paula and remembered something. She looked over Sissy, too, and back at Paula again. "Isn't it high time you were married," she said knowingly. "Sissy, I'd speak to Paula if I were you."

"Really, Mummy!" said Paula. She turned the color of a geranium and her blue eyes were almost black. Along with her body her pupils were expanding too.

"The sooner the better," said Granny.

"Dearest," said Ian to the old lady, "I made an honest woman of Paula last June."

The old lady counted on her fingers. "Humph," she said.

"What's become of Daisy?" she questioned. She had a way of changing the subject and yet definitely not changing the subject at all. "I'd like a cup of tea."

Out in the kitchen the big Swede, Stella, sat drinking strong black coffee and shaking her head from side to side, if it weren't for Miss Sissy she'd surely give notice; that the old lady was mad she was convinced and it hadn't been easy ("Daisy!"

"Yes, missus.") to submit to a loss of identity the very first day and a change of nationality the next: When she stumbled over Bunce, the old lady had spoken as if she weren't there. "Straight out of the bog," she had said, "can't she pick up her feet." In her scrubbings she had come across bloodstains, too, on the bathroom walls. "Now how did blood get there," she said to herself. She was hardy and sensible, not given to imagining anything at all, but a broken tooth and a lock of hair had been swept into a corner in the kitchen, there had been shattered crockery in the wastebasket and a leg freshly off a chair. She had run into Miss Lamby rouged up like a clown and smelling of bourbon. "Howdy," Lamby had said, "how's about a snort?" And little Miss Maggie had jumped a foot when she had gone late to the parlor to gather up Coke bottles and empty the ash trays. "Don't tell!" Miss Maggie had whispered; what was the little thing doing in the hall outside young Mrs. Ratcliffe's room that she should nearly jump out of her skin!

Everyone went to bed, it was quiet and the big woman, full of energy still, she could have cleaned six such houses as this, poured herself more coffee....

"Stella!"

She paid no heed. She had dipped her head with pursed lips to the fragrant brew. She held the pose and waited. So the old lady knew perfectly well what her name was....

"Stella!"

She did not move. A stubborn hard look came over her wide fair face. She took a good hot swallow. "Daisy!"

She put the cup down.

"Yes, missus." She meant to show her she was one or the other. The old lady was full of tricks. What was she up to now?

"Reach me my pen and ink," said the old lady. She was sitting up in bed, bright-eyed, a little lacy cap at an angle over her fine brows.

"Shouldn't the missus be resting," said Stella not unkindly. "It's one o'clock."

"It's no such thing," said Maisie. "Do as you're told."

And Maisie began writing her will.

While Stella, the blonde big Swede, well made and nicely hinged, whom Sissy had hired in the hope, it seemed, that a change of nationality, a Swede in the pantry, would somehow be differently constructed and impervious, finished her twentieth cup of Java and reluctantly went to bed.

"Don't make your will all the time," said Sissy, "it makes me feel badly."

"We all have to go sometime," said the old lady sententiously. "Yurp," she said, lapsing into Janey's vernacular, "thas the way it goes."

My inlaid lazy Susan, she wrote carefully, to my good friend Cotton Mather; to Mr. Fiske, my cameo that he so much admired; my jade Buddha given me by Lord Camavan to my beloved sister Jail, if she be living. Item: my sixty-four thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight full paid shares of the capital stock of the La Cruz Mining Company transferable only on the books of the Company in person or by attorney on the surrender of my certificates, to my son, Dodge Herbert, provided he shall survive me. Item: my seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and forty-two full paid shares of the capital stock of the Santa Juliana Mining Company I give and bequeath to my son, Dougherty Herbert, provided he shall survive me....

"Ma-Ma?"

"What's that?"

"It's so long, dear, don't tire yourself."

"It's nowheres long enough," snapped the old lady.

"Don't leave me anything, Ma-Ma," said Sissy. "You know I'm all right, Papa..."

"Listen to this," said Maisie, "listen carefully: After my lawful debts are paid and discharged I give, devise and bequeath all my real and personal property of every kind and description whatsoever to my beloved daughter Sissy absolutely and forever to do with as she may see fit."

"Oh, Ma-Ma."

"And," said the old lady, "and what's more, I hereby appoint my daughter Sissy to be sole executrix of this my last will and testament. How does that suit you, miss?"

"Ma-Ma, really, it's too sweet of you."

"Think nothing of it. Where's Cousin Ian?"

"He will be here soon."

"I want him to have my carriole and Paula shall have my phaeton."

The old lady nodded and Sissy tiptoed out of the room.

"... Being of sound and disposing mind," old Maisie murmured, "and memory... and considering the uncertainty of this life... do make, publish and declare this to be my last will and testament..." She seemed to be asleep; Bunce was snoring gently but the orange and black cat sat upright, she was keeping an eye on the old lady, the last inch of her tail moving spasmodically. She opened her mouth gently and prettily about halfway and yawned.

"... and memory... and considering... do make, publish and declare..." the old lady repeated. "It's very pretty... devising and bequeathing... to whom it may concern... it's lovely... this day, 1879, Maisie Sparehawk Herbert..."

The old lady breathed quietly, the corners of her violet lips turned up, her bosom rising and falling shallowly, one pointed slipper rested on Bunce's side and the pen slipped out of her long, almost fleshless fingers. The light came sideways into the room as the sun set.

"So that's that," said the old lady and she painstakingly sealed the final version of her wordy will with Janey's old bright-red sealing wax. Ian loaned her his signet ring that he wore on his watch chain, for the impression, and it did say plainly enough Si Je Puis just as the imbecile Captain Ratcliffe's no doubt had, as a bearer of arms, way back, even further than that; Norman, it was.

The old lady looked very well indeed. You even got the impression that some day she would amount to something, she was talented, precocious, and Ian looked her over attentively and fondly. He felt her pervasive charm, he loved her little flaming spirit, "Dear Cousin Maisie," he said.

"Cousin Ian," she said, "what, may I ask, is mugging?"

Ian laughed. "You've been reading The New York Times again," he said. "Well, you come up behind your victim-so"-he stood behind her chair-"and you place your dirty hands around her lovely neck-so- and you reach for her pocketbook-and beat it, that's mugging, but," went on Ian, "in this case you kiss your lovely victim-so-" and he kissed Maisie's eyelids; he felt them quiver and for some reason he wanted to cry.

"Oh, well," said Maisie, "why couldn't they say so in the first place."

"Anything else, dearest?"

"Bumping, what on earth?" but the old lady asked it shyly, surely bumping in the subway would be more interesting than the petty theft he had described.

"Cousin Maisie, I'm very much surprised at you," teased Ian.

"Fiddlesticks, do go on." It seemed as if the old lady's curiosity must be symbolically satisfied at last before she could rest. "I'm an old lady, what does it matter," Maisie insisted, but her eyes shone.

As Ian did not care to demonstrate the maneuver, he tried to tell her without gestures.

"Oh," she said, "is that all."

"It's rather nasty," said Ian.

"Well," said Maisie, "it takes all kinds."

"Just call on me any time," said Ian.

"Good night, dear boy."

"Stella!"

The old clock seemed to answer the call, and softly, like a spoon in a teacup, it rang three times. Ping... ping... ping.

"Stella!"

Stella lifted her head from a sound sleep. Not quite awake, she pushed one massive leg out of bed.

"Stella!" she heard the old lady call imperiously.

"No," said Stella to herself, "I won't," and she turned over on her other side and went to sleep; some skyline in Sweden, taking over her dreams softened the hard stubborn line of her mouth and she looked pretty, her big bosoms folded against each other like pillows, her round hip curving like a hill. There was no waking her now.

The old clock gently carried on, it was the only sound, it almost purred: tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.

"Lamby!"

Lamby stood on the upstairs landing. She had heard the old lady calling Stella so imperiously but now the tone of her voice Lamby felt was insulting.

"Lamby, you little simpleton," she heard the old lady mutter. "Lamby! Come here, you fool!"

Lamby stood still and trembled. "Stinker," she said, "old bitch." She shut the door but she still listened...

Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.

Lamby reached up into the closet, her heart beating much louder than the clock, it beat hard in her ears and her stomach contracted. She opened her throat, "Ahhhh." She sat on the side of the bed and emptied the bottle. She tucked herself in and the warmth of the liquor seemed to produce a pink fog in her mind, but it did not soothe her as it usually did. After a series of starts and jumps over which she had no control and a sudden relaxing of her jaws that made her bite her tongue, she lost consciousness.

Downstairs old Maisie listened to the retreating tread of her old heart as if the hired man were going down the cellar steps. She noted the diminution of her reason, the captious mounting of blood into her ears, her nostrils, her eyes. She lifted her hand and in the pale light of early morning she studied it thoughtfully, but with all her strength she could not hold it upright, it fell. "Fiddle-faddle," said the old lady huskily and with some eerie ectoplasmic show of strength and determination she stood on her feet. "Thadeus," she said in the voice of a girl and she fell straight down as if there were a hole in the floor. She crumpled quietly into a semicircular position and a few drops of blood on her lips looked like wine and in her ears like rubies.

The cat was the first to know and she gave a piercing scream as if death were a big tomcat who had accosted her; the pitiful screech twisted and looped across the walls and into sockets and whistled through the keyholes, vases trembled and the glassware in the pantry sang out.

Bunce carefully turned his head that trembled with palsied age and protested with glazed eyes'. The sound had hurt him; his thickened eardrums were a barrier now and did not vibrate or send any message to his dog's brain, he was blind, too, but he absorbed, it seemed, events nevertheless, through the nerve endings which were still sensitive. He sensed a change come over his mistress-a slight change; a queer fearful scent reached his nostrils and they quivered. He moved aside as she went down and he felt a growl coming into his throat, the so silent Bunce gave an ominous lion-like roar. Instinctively the hair stood in a dark line down to his tail which curved under him and clung to his belly as if he, too, like the cat feared a sexual attack from behind. He half circled the corpse and stood guard at the door. He had no idea whose body lay there, he did what he did because he must. He felt footsteps coming along the floor.

"Ma-Ma!"

...

"Ma-Ma! May I come in? It's Sissy."

...

The old dog grew suddenly very weak as help came. He folded up and carefully lay down, blocking the door; he was dead.

"Ma-Ma! It's me, Sissy, your eldest!"

...

"What's wrong!"

...

"Ma-Ma!"

"Granny, it's Maggie, let me in, Granny!"

...

"Ma-Ma!"

...

"Maisie!"

...

"Maisie!"

...

"Ma-Ma!"

...

"Granny!

...

""Ma-Ma!"

...

"Missus, it's Daisy with your tea, missus, it's Stella!"

...

"Oh, oh!" Sissy the brave and the cool wrung her hands. "Get Miss Lamby!" she said as Stella put her shoulder to the door against which the old collie lay. "Lamby! Get some whiskey!"

Lamby stood behind them looking through the door that had easily swept the skinny Bunce along the floor. Her eyes were as glazed as the dog's and her hands were lifted with fingers still curved as if around the old lady's throat. The homicidal dream was in her stance, her look, her pose. That she had done it she had no doubt. Through lips that were dry with a terrible thirst she heard herself say, "Stinker! Old bitch!" but no sound came out. She had not awakened; and no bruises were found on the old lady's throat.

At the same time that big Stella lifted the old lady as if she were a hollow doll back into her bed and carried Bunce like a papier-mache toy outside, Paula drew her lips up away from her teeth like a dog in the middle of a fit and in an agony of scrunching pain that took away her consciousness, her body, performing mechanically without her will, expelled her baby and she didn't know any more until she heard from a distance as if through a fog, lying as quietly and still as death, a heavenly peace in her whole self, the words, "It's a girl."

The doctor bent over her and repeated gently, "It's a girl."

The nurse, her cool fingers on her pulse, said, "It's a girl."

Paula smiled.

"Honey, it's a girl," said her husband. "Can you hear me, sweetheart, it's a girl."

Paula didn't want to open her eyes or stir but she raised her hand an inch off the coverlet and did open them a moment. "Tired," she said, still smiling, "lovely."

Ian kissed Paula's hand and let his forehead rest upon it. She felt his tears. Ian was weeping for a lot of things, including the date with Maggie which he had kept last night, but at present, like Paula, he felt a delicious sentiment and peace and I suppose it was-what did Maisie call it-genesis.