By Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
Chapter Four "The Devil You Say"
A man's hearty voice came rumbling up the stairs.
"All right now, Gwynnith. Settle those children. We've got a Political Committee meeting this evening as you well know."
"Ay, Daffiyd, I'm well aware," replied Sarah's mother down the staircase. "Abbey, come downstairs with me to the kitchen. There's plenty to get ready for the folks stopping by. Mother Tone can watch Dar, and you can unpack later while the meeting's going on."
"Yes, Auntie Gwyn."
"Mother Tone, please send that recalcitrant Sarah down if you run into her. I don't know where she's gotten herself. She's more mystery than daughter these days. Tell her we've prep work to do in the kitchen."
Abbey trailed Mrs. Tone down the curving staircase and toward the kitchen.
"Bang! Bang!" Dar's flat, emphatic voice followed his sister and Mrs. Tone down the steps.
"All right now, Sarah," said Granny Pansy, raising her voice. "It's safe to come out of the closet."
A moment later, Sarah's head peeped around the corner of the white closet door. "Is that Abbey gone?"
"Yes, she's gone downstairs with your mother. But her brother's still here, so mind your tongue. You'll have to join them in a minute if you haven't already heard. Tonight's that execrable Political Committee meeting that your folks are so wrapped up in. Nothing but busy-bodies and fussbudgets to my way of thinking. And the worst kind too. They always want to change the way things have always been done in this town, and for little enough reason, and to no good purpose I often suspect. There's no need to switch compasses when the North Star hasn't moved, I always say."
Sarah stood in front of the closet door, secreting an item she had taken from Gilman's uniform into her dress pocket.
"My goodness, Sarah! You've a cut on your hand. Come here and let me tend it."
Sarah went silently over to her Grandmother and held out her hand. That's dug a bit deep, Sarah. I hope what you've found is worth the injury."
"Yes, it is," Sarah replied automatically. "Well, I don't know. It may not come to anything."
"You don't like your cousins, Sarah." Sarah began to protest. "It was not a question. They've come a long distance to be here. And I daresay Abbey is almost as displeased as yourself with the whole affair. You might want to recall that when you're dealing out scorn. Scratch a foe and find and friend."
"Yes Ma'am."
"There's no need to 'Yes Ma'am' your Granny Pansy. But I'll take the honorific if I come by it sincerely."
Granny Pansy looked Sarah square in the face. Without overt judgment, but steadily. Sarah broke down. "Oh, Granny Pansy. I'm so glad to see you. But why do I have to put up with all these strangers? And in Gilman's room! It's just not right."
"As you grow older, Sarah, you'll find that many things are not right with this world, and it can take extra hands to help turn it right way round again. Do you understand?"
"No. But I guess I have to accept it, right?"
"My dear, you don't have to accept anything at all. But unless you want to remain ignorant of everything going on around you you'd best start with what's already here and work forward, making the best of it as you go. Just because there's no steak in the pantry doesn't mean there's no soup in the kitchen. Now, you get down there and help your Mother and Abbey. Even Political Committees need to eat."
"Yes Ma'am," said Sarah, and smiled, giving her Granny Pansy a quick hug.
As Sarah left, Dar drew careful aim at her retreating back. "Bang! Bang!"
* * * *
Downstairs in the kitchen, the scene was one of high mirth--at least for an onlooker. Sarah's mother was elbows-deep in a bowl, powdering the crescent cookies. Crescent cookies were a favorite of Mr. Plimsoul's, a man whose face Sarah thought she could go to the grave without seeing again and she wouldn't mind a whit. Abbey was reaching far above her head into a deep cabinet for a final ingredient (Mrs. Porridge's butterscotch morsels) and describing to Mrs. Tone the shape and weight of the boxes and bags she was encountering, to which Mrs. Tone would invariably reply. "No, that's not it. Left, left."
"Sarah, darling, you're taller than Abbey. Could you grab the glass tray from above the refrigerator for the crescent cookies? I'm sure they'll make a fine display against the cut rose glass."
Sarah maneuvered next to Abbey without speaking. This was the first time she really gave her cousin a good look. As her mother said, she was shorter--so short, in fact, that Sarah was nearly twice her height. Sarah had gotten her first growth spurt just this past season, and still occasionally tried to throw on her old clothes when she wasn't thinking, and wound up looking like a straw wearing a pair of shorts. Abbey had dark black hair, with a severe cut and a horrible curl like a scythe at the bottoms. She wore plain gold-rimmed glasses, and her eyes were a sort of murky blue, a sky before storm. She was a little younger than Sarah, but not too much, may just two summers or a year and a half. Sarah thought she remembered that Abbey had skipped a year in the city school system, so they would probably be in the same classes come Monday.
Sarah placed the tray on the counter beside her mother, while snaking an arm into the cabinet above Abbey, far to the right, snatching the butterscotch morsels wordlessly and plunking them into Abbey's hands.
"Thank you, darling," said Mrs. Tone when Abbey offered the morsels for her inspection.
Then the front door opened, and they could all hear Mr. Tone's big voice engaging with two other male voices in the foyer.
"Oh, devil!" exclaimed Mrs. Tone. "The committee members are already arriving." She glanced around briefly. "Abbey, display the cookies on this tray, if you would please. And Sarah, finish up the morsels; the recipe's right on the back of the package that Abbey retrieved from the cupboard."
"But Auntie Gwyn, I didn't..." began Abbey, but Sarah interrupted her.
"OK, Mom. Consider it done. Shall we bring the trays out when everything's ready?"
"Oh, no, I'll check back in. Children aren't allowed in the committee meeting, so you two just stay in here."
And as fast as that, Mrs. Tone abandoned the kitchen to attend a knock at the front door.
"Thanks," said Abbey. She and Sarah got the trays ready as the crowd in the living room grew larger and more boisterous. The girls could hear strange bits of talk float through the counter top divider.
"Ah, Mr. Hecatomb, a pleasure to have you in the house. You're the apple of Sarah's eye."
"His dog gave my dog fleas."
"Dirty great rascals loiterin' in every doorway. Ought 'ter increase the constabulary, I says."
"Our men need work. It'll be revolution soon enough if this keeps up."
"There's some who are profitin' in any case. When goods are rarer they who own can call the tune."
"Well, The Dublin House seems to be doing a booming business in thirsty patrons."
"I see that Burrbuckle lout is here."
"There's more in his heart than's on his tongue."
"And there's some that want your trust merely to take advantage of it."
"Plimsoul's not a man to trifle with, and all here know it well enough."
They opened the folding room divider just enough to pass the snack trays through to the other side, and then shut them again. Sarah knew that once the influential gathering had reached a critical mass, her mother would never remember to come back into the kitchen for the crescent cookies--or for anything else for that matter. Mrs. Tone thought kitchen work was beneath the dignity of a modern enlightened woman, certainly one meaningfully engaged in politics.
The front door opened and slammed shut several more times in quick succession. Just when it seemed the living room could hold no more noise, a loud bell was rung several times, and then returned to its place on the mantle.
"Hear, hear," began a gilded voice. "Let the Political Committee meeting come to order."
"Who's that? His voice is so smooth," asked Abbey in a whisper.
"That's Berny Cottswold," explained Sarah, whispering in return. "He's the man who was defeated for mayor in the last two elections. His family have been mayors and judges here since before there were automobiles."
The two girls turned down the lights in the kitchen and peered through the divider cautiously.
"All right now. There's serious business before the Political Committee tonight. Tonight we must decide if we are for or against the dockworkers' strike."
Immediately there was an outcry in the gathered crowd. Feelings on the topic were obviously high.
"Now calm yourselves. Naturally, we of the Political Committee must speak with one voice on this topic if we are to have any impact at all."
"We must be wasacally wabbits, ay?"
"Mr. Plimsoul, your levity's misplaced."
"The devil you say! If we can't laugh at our troubles, our troubles will have the last laugh on us."
"These strikers are serious. And some of them may get up to no good if they think that their grievances are being dismissed or made fun of. In fact, the leader of these strikers is out making a name for himself in the newspapers. Prospering on the misery of his workers."
"Very well, very well. Point taken."
"That's my brother your talking about, Berny!"
"I know it is, Barnabas. Just you settle down. We haven't come to any decision yet. I'm merely stating that we must come to one."
"All right. But tread light. Better wise silence than foolish prattle."
"Thank you, Barnabas. As I was saying, if the Political Committee doesn't want to be sidelined, we must come out in front on this issue that is affecting so many of Traeshurstaene's citizens. We cannot let events overtake us. We must be seen to be leaders on this."
Just on the other side of the divider, a quiet but intense conversation was starting that the girls were uniquely positioned to overhear.
"He must be seen as a leader he means," began the first voice, a sibilant female slither that sounded peculiarly apt at spurring unpleasant insinuations.
"Two terms on his ass out of the Mayor's office and a new election cycle coming up. If he doesn't make a good show, our faction will find another pony to ride," responded a second, male voice. This voice sounded smooth as well, too smooth, as if it had no sides, the way ice disappears in a glass of water.
Something in the voice brought Sarah to attention, and with a shushing gesture and a glance over to Abbey, she squirmed noiselessly up onto the counter, trying to get close enough to the where the divider parted to get a look at the speakers.
"The time is drawing nigh. We may not have time to choose another."
"Well, there is time, and there is time," remarked the man mysteriously. Sarah had just about given up trying to peer through the divider. The man and woman were simply too close to the opening. And then she noticed a small band of light on her hand. One of the slats in the divider was broken, and it had fallen down on one side to let the sliver of light pass through. Sarah put her eye to the narrow opening.
"A useless fool is only one thing--an impediment to our plans." This was a third voice, but Sarah couldn't see who it might be at all.
"Yes. But we would have to be quite careful." When the man spoke again, Sarah couldn't make out his features. His face was one long sharp shadow. Sarah turned her glance to see the woman. What Sarah saw was a perfectly composed, elegant figure of a woman, sporting a long black boa. Her eyes were large and somehow strange, as if they saw nothing and everything at once. She had the suavity of a snake in her poise, relaxed, and yet alert enough to attack at a minute's notice.
"Give us a crescent cookie," the invisible voice said. "All of Berny's speechifying is giving me an appetite."
"Has rather the opposite effect on me, I must say. Not that I'd eat one of these miserable cookies if Betty Crocker had made them herself."
The thin man turned abruptly toward Sarah to retrieve one of the crescent cookies from the rose-colored glass plate. It was Mr. Plimsoul! Sarah gave a little involuntary intake of breath, and then froze stock still. His eyes were leveled directly at her. Had he seen her? Sarah had only known him as a physics instructor in the high school--a class she wasn't old enough to take yet. Sarah couldn't tell if he had spotted her spying or not. He took a cookie and took a bite out of it coolly, smiling at Sarah's mother, standing up by the front of the room. If he had seen her, his self-possession was enviable.
"We haven't used all of our influence as of yet, Simon. They are ways, and there are ways. The old ways."
"Don't speak of such things here!" hissed the man. "The walls are thin," said Mr. Plimsoul, and gave the divider a quick rap.
And that ended the pair's colloquy. Or the unusual threesome's, perhaps she should say, although Sarah hadn't been able to see even the shadow of the invisible voice's diminutive speaker.
Berny Cottswold's sticky voice came barreling back over the crowd. His pronouncement had the inevitability of a coronation and the warm hope of a harvest seen from the height of mid-summer. How could anyone doubt that whatever Berny said simply had to be true?
"Our success," he began. "Our success will lie in unanimity. Once we've taken a decision, dissenters must be suppressed." He looked around the room, waiting for some voice of protest. Through the broken slat in the divider, Sarah could see Barnabas shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably, a great slow bear full of long thoughts, but hesitant to commit his strength unwisely. He held his tongue as the votes were passed forward in silence and then tallied by Sarah's mother, Mrs. Tone.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR