The Road Through the Wall Read Online Free Page B

hands on her apron, Mrs. Byrne went into the hall and picked up the phone.
    â€œHello?” she said, and the telephone said steadily, “Hello, this is Josephine Merriam. Harriet’s mother.”
    â€œOf course, Mrs. Merriam.” Mrs. Byrne bowed politely to Mrs. Merriam at least once a day. “How are you?”
    â€œI am very much disturbed, Mrs. Byrne, and I think you ought to know the facts immediately, which is why I called. Our daughters have been doing some rather indiscreet things.”
    â€œYes?” said Mrs. Byrne.
    â€œThis morning,” Mrs. Merriam went on, “I happened to discover a letter my daughter had written to one of the neighborhood boys. It was a childish,” and Mrs. Merriam laughed shortly, “but improper letter. She tells me that the other girls in the neighborhood have been writing the same kind of letters.”
    â€œMary?” Mrs. Byrne said.
    â€œMary indeed,” said Mrs. Merriam. “And Virginia Donald, and of course, the source of it all, Helen Williams. I don’t know, naturally, whose
fault
it is,” she said lingeringly, “but of course I think the girls should be spoken to.”
    â€œOf course,” Mrs. Byrne said. “I’ll speak to Mary, of course.”
    â€œHarriet also tells me,” Mrs. Merriam said, “that your son has been
getting
letters.”
    â€œWho from?” Mrs. Byrne’s voice was suddenly flat.
    â€œI think
he’s
the person to tell you
that
,” Mrs. Merriam said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Byrne, to be the one to tell you.”
    â€œYou couldn’t do anything else,” Mrs. Byrne said.
    â€œAfter all, my own daughter is in it too,” Mrs. Merriam said.
    â€œI’ll speak to Mary,” Mrs. Byrne said.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Marilyn Perlman came into the house quickly, opening the front door with her key. She put her books down on the hall table and read the note sitting there: “Dear, have gone to Mrs. White’s, back about five. If anyone calls take message. Love, Mother.” Marilyn wondered vaguely why her mother always ended even the slightest notes formally; her father had once told her solemnly that the notes left for the milkman always ended, “Yrs. sincerely, R. Perlman.”
    The Perlmans’ home was probably the wealthiest-looking on the block, although presumably the Desmonds had more money than the Perlmans, and Mrs. Merriam was vaguely noted for her “taste.” The Perlmans’ living-room was pale green and beige, and Mr. Perlman liked to see a wood fire in the fireplace, although the Donalds had theirs stacked with imitation logs, and the Byrnes had a grate with a red light behind it. When Marilyn came into her living-room she was able to take a book from a bookcase; it was a limp-leather bound volume of Thackeray, but Harriet Merriam, after all, spent Saturday morning dusting the photograph album which lay on a side table in the Merriams’ living-room, and the first secular book in the Byrne house was Pat’s copy of
Robinson Crusoe
.
    Marilyn was reading through Thackeray for words; from
Vanity Fair
she had gleaned “adorable” and “fearsome” and “horrid”; from
The Virginian
she already had half a dozen. Her word for today was “storied”; it had turned up in English class in school, and Marilyn had written it on the margin of her English book, for copying later.
    With the Thackeray under her arm, Marilyn went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of coke, and took the bottle and the book out to the front porch. The Perlmans’ porch was heavily screened by vines, and in the glider Marilyn was hidden and secure to watch the movement of people up and down the block. She knew some of the people very well; the Ransom-Joneses across the street, and Harriet Merriam, toward whom she felt a respectful sympathy, and James Donald, whom she loved desperately. The