ON TUESDAY at a quarter to six Acy walked home from the bank. His fine burgundy Oldsmobile stayed in the carriage house on the alley because he liked the exercise the uphill route gave him, even when he was tired, as he was today. When he opened his front door, the quiet was palpable, and at once he knew that something was different. No cooking smells. He looked at the floor, wondering if he had forgotten some event, perhaps a recital or music class for Madeline. Nothing came to mind. He went into the kitchen and put a hand on the stove, which was cold. Upstairs, everything seemed in order and the beds were made, which meant that Vessy, who did the housework when the maid was ill, as well as the cooking, had been in.
He decided to take the car down the hill and eat at the Wilson Hotel. At the restaurant, while waiting for his food, he studied his ironstone plate. Had Vessy taken ill? His wife, he knew, had caught the Galeno upriver to shop, and there were all sorts of reasons the old boat might be late getting back in. Perhaps Madeline had gone along, and Vessy as well, to help with the packages. Two young lawyers came over to join him, and soon he was talking of tax laws and thinking about the night’s steaks. He would have enjoyed a glass of wine, as in the old days before the war when drinking was legal. But the steaks arrived plump and running with hot fat, so he was happy.
THE GALENO had indeed developed boiler trouble and was limping downstream two hours behind schedule. Willa liked riding a boat upriver, imagining against fact that the dowdy, short-trade packets still running were grand floating palaces, but after dark she always wished she’d taken the train. She was tired, and the ladies’ lounge at the rear of the main salon had lost its gilt and gloss, the chair seats threadbare and smelling of coal oil. Two dour spinsters were returning from a doctor’s visit, and all they wanted to talk about were the limitless female problems they’d suffered. She passed the time by going through her two large bundles of purchases, one of which held even more shifts and pinafores for the girl. She was anxious to return and show her Madeline the new things, though the girl seldom reacted much to gifts of clothes. That would change as she got older and learned more about style and fashion. Willa had taught her many things already, although the girl still refused to call her Mother, or to wave at people properly, or to refrain from certain unruly expressions. The times she tried to feel close to Madeline, when the girl was in her lap and she was brushing her hair, the child would turn suddenly, staring at her as though Willa were a complete stranger. Then she would feel hurt and denied, but she was always able to cheer herself with the knowledge that at last, at long last, she possessed a child.
The Galeno landed after eight o’clock, and Willa called the house from the wharf boat and asked Acy to come down and get her. When he arrived, he helped her with her packages. “I guess we’ll have to drive by Vessy’s to pick Madeline up.”
“What on earth for?”
“She must’ve brought the child home with her. They’re not at the house.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody was home when I got there after work.”
She waited for him to close her door and walk around the hood. He was moving quickly and jumped into the driver’s seat like a boy. “I hate for Madeline to be in that neighborhood, it just smells so awful,” she said, waving a perfumed hand before her nose.
He put the car in gear and drove up the hill, turning down Ditch Street and driving past a row of narrow, tin-roofed houses, their windows yellow with kerosene light, until he stopped in front of Vessy’s. The house was dark, but he still got out and knocked.
He sped a little as they rolled on toward home. Willa put a gloved hand on his arm. “What is it?”
He motioned with his chin. “No lights on at home, either.”
They went in and searched for a note, a clue. Willa went to a drawer in the walnut breakfront and retrieved her bottle of Canadian whiskey, pouring herself a long swallow into a cut-glass tumbler. A tremor ran through her hand as she drank.
Acy came back from the old carriage house and sat down, taking her drink and downing it. “They’re not here.”
“Maybe Madeline became ill and she took her to the doctor.”
He let out a sigh. “That’s got to be it.”
But after an apologetic phone call, he came back into the dining room and said the doctor hadn’t seen them. By this time it was nine o’clock. He went to the neighbors on either side. Mrs. Spurlen hadn’t seen Vessy or Madeline all day. Mr. Scott, who owned several farms but had retired to town, brought his great gray eyebrows together and asked if there was any trouble.
“No, nothing at all,” Acy told him, backing off the old man’s broad stone porch. “We’ve just got our schedules mixed up, and we don’t know where Vessy brought our little girl tonight.”
The old man checked his outsized pocket watch. “It’s late, but if you want I’ll go and check somewheres. You ask the doctor?”
“Yes. It’s all right. I’m sure she’ll turn up shortly.”
“Oh, Acy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to have your back fence painted?”
“What? Oh, sure.” He was walking backwards toward the street.
“I know it’s just the alley, but we have to keep it looking good, what with the automobiles using it as a shortcut and raising the dust. There were even horses early this morning.”
“I’ll have a man get on it next week.”
“Thanks.” Mr. Scott closed his door and turned off the porch light.
When he got home, Willa was crying, and he sat next to her on the divan, attempting to calm her. He made them both cups of tea, which they drank at table, saying nothing. Waiting. For the first time he missed the girl’s face, the bright newness of it, even her pert refusal to grant him much in the way of affection. The child-noise she’d made was a beating heart in his house. For a brief second he wondered how the girl’s parents had felt, but he killed that thought as quickly as he’d slap a mosquito.
At ten o’clock, he had an idea and found the new battery-powered flashlight and walked down into the backyard. At the gate he shined the light in the alley and saw the apple-shaped leavings of a horse. Perhaps two horses. He walked next door and knocked on Mr. Scott’s door until the old man came downstairs and appeared in his pajamas, blinking through the partially opened door. “What is it?”
“Sorry to get you out of bed, Jess, but you mentioned horses were in the alley?”
“Horses? Where?” He looked out over the lawn into the blackness.
“This morning. You told me.”
“Oh. Yes. Two of them.”
“On a wagon? Was it the lumber company?”
Mr. Scott paused a moment. “No, a man was leading them. I was on the way to my garage and I saw him. I started to call for him not to let the animals dawdle and smell up the neighborhood.”
“Just him?”
“That’s all I saw. Has your little girl come home yet?”
Acy liked for things to be orderly, liked for them not only to fall into place, but also to stay there, and now someone had broken the order in his life. “We’re doing what we can. This man, can you describe him?”
“I don’t remember. I just saw a man.” Mr. Scott put two fingers on his chin. “He was big. Wore a pretty big hat, and not a bad one. Probably a Stetson. Certainly not trash.”
“Anything else?”
“I just glimpsed him. He was just walking the horses, holding the reins.”
“What time?”
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Scott put one bare foot out onto the porch floor.
“What time of day was all this?”
“Oh. It was early. Maybe eight or so.”
“Thank you, Jess.”
“Do you need for me to do anything?”
But Acy had already gone out to the street and was feeling for the gate in the moonless dark. A moment later, Willa heard him come up the steps and let him in.
“Does Vessy have any friends who come by on horses?”
“I don’t know. She’s so cross I don’t know if she’s made any friends at all since she’s been living here.”
“Someone was in the alley with saddle horses right after we left the house.”
“Do you think she planned an outing and something went wrong?” Willa stood up and clenched her fist, but it occurred to her that she didn’t know who she was angry with and sat back down. “Should we call the sheriff to look for them?”
“Does Vessy have any man friends?”
“How could she? Have you smelled her? Just the essence of pine oil and kitchen smoke.”
Acy looked at her, trying to smile, but failing. “I’ll call the sheriff. But you know, we’ll have to be careful what we tell him.”
Her eyes grew wide, as if she’d just remembered where the child had come from. “Could her parents have-”
“Her parents wouldn’t make off with her like that. They’d come straight up the hill.”
“Oh God, Acy. Do you think someone found out? And where’s Vessy?” She stood up quickly and put a hand against a daffodil in the wallpaper.
“It doesn’t make sense. But if we don’t call the sheriff tonight, he’ll find it odd.”
THE SHERIFF ARRIVED at their house at ten-forty-five. He was middle-aged, a politician of sorts, ambitiously dressed in a suit. Acy held a thirteen-thousand-dollar mortgage against his new house, so he took off his fedora, came in politely, and listened politely. Then he told them that Vessy probably took the girl off and would have a good explanation come morning. Just to be sure, he’d drop by the train station and the wharf boat and ask if anyone had seen something they all should know about.
Acy started to tell him about the horses, but something-perhaps his most fearful suspicion-made him hold back. “In the morning, then.”
HE LAY AWAKE all night, thinking about the girl, while his wife roamed the house from bed to bed, finally settling on the divan downstairs. Before the sheriff drove up in the morning, Acy had already told Willa what he thought. “The Skadlocks have taken her back. That’s the only thing I can figure.”
They were seated at the kitchen table drinking tap water. Willa looked at him, incredulous. “Why? We paid them what they asked, and it was a lot of money.”
They both were quiet for a long time before the sheriff came, hat in hand. He stood in the dining room, studying the china cabinet, and said he’d searched Vessy’s cabin and found nothing out of the ordinary. Her few clothes seemed to be there and not a thing had been moved out that he could see, but then, the furniture came with the place, even the cheap enamel pots and the rusty knives and forks. She owned almost nothing.
“When are you going to start looking for my child?” Willa said, glancing at her husband.
The sheriff explained what he could do and left as quickly as he could.
Acy stared through the front window as his Ford chattered away down the hill. “I can’t even leave to look for her,” he said. “Not right away. I couldn’t explain my absence.”
“If Skadlock does have her, you can’t lead the sheriff to him.”
He continued watching the lawman’s departure, as though envious of his motion and freedom. “But where’s Vessy? That’s the part I don’t understand.”
“Maybe he bought her off and she left for the mountains.”
He looked long at the bare dining-room table, the empty chairs. “I don’t have any idea.”
“Are you going in to work?” She was twisting a handkerchief in her hands.
“I don’t think it would look right.” His stomach rumbled and he glanced at the kitchen door. Looking down, he saw that his shirt was wrinkled, but there was no one to iron it. Most days he felt his life was on schedule like a crack passenger train, but not today. Now all he could do was wonder where his little girl might be.