The Transcendental Murder Read Online Free
the front hall they ran into Ernest Goss, Charleyâs father. He was lighting candles, making a hash of it. Alice Herpirude was fluttering about, arranging little bowls of crocuses.
âHello, Mr. Goss,â said Mary. She towered over him genially, balancing her jugs of cider, passing the time of day, thinking cheerfully at the same time how much she disliked him. He was as âOld Concordâ as anybody could be, but somehow he didnât ring true. Or he had lost the spirit of the forefathers, or something. He wasnât the only one who had. There were plenty of others like him, well-meaning people with money, living in housees that looked like Christmas cards, spending the summer on the Cape, getting tan, playing tennis, driving around in convertibles, living what was supposed to be the good life. But hollow somehow. Ernest Goss had a handsome wife, four handsome children (well, three anyhow), he talked with an exaggerated nasal Yankee twang, he was a graduate of Exeter and Harvard, he wore tweedy jackets from the Country Store and he kept up the general impression of being the superbly appointed country gentleman. But there was something wrong somewhere. He was like a paper pattern that had been cut out very carefully on the black line. His wife was even more so. Together they bored Mary exceedingly. What she liked to think of as real âOld Concordâ was Grandmaw Hand and her son Tom, and a lot of others like them. They were true squeezings from the Concord grape. The old Barrett place was still a working New England farm, and the Mission armchair and the roll-top desk with the stuffed duck and the plastic globe and the feathery egg-boxes stacked on it and the spindly geraniums in coffee cans and the calendars and the Angelus and the linoleum on the dining room floorâthey were not there to be part of a certain kind of setting, they were just there. And Tom himself, in his overalls, and Mrs. Hand in her husbandâs old hat ⦠But of course it wasnât just a matter of living in the past. Those new families in Henryâs Conantum woods seemed to have soaked up the spirit of plain living and high thinking that had always been the best of Concord, like something given off by the soil, or breathed in the air. It occurred to Mary that Concordâs aboriginal Indians had probably been just another flock of egregious individuals with a passion for sunsets and a taste for abstraction.
She lugged her cider into the little kitchen, ducking under the lintel of the door. And there she ran into the gorilla of the morning. He was leaning gigantically against the hutch-back bench, going over a handful of notes. âExcuse me,â said Mary. She set her cider down on the black stove and opened the door of the cupboard where the paper cups were.
âSo youâre one of them, too,â he said.
Mary looked up at him, and felt her cheeks flare. She knew what his âone of themâ meant. (One of those little provincial biddies who play dolls with Little Women. )
âYes,â she said shortly. He lifted his notes again, and Mary started pouring cider. It felt odd to be in such close quarters with someone bigger than she was. Carefully she poured out twenty-four cups of cider, exerting all her attention so as not to spill any. She turned politely to nod to the gorilla as she finished. The darn man wasnât reading his notes at all. He was looking at her with eyes that were little barbs of concentrated curiosity. She might be some new species of woodchuck or pit viper or something. Maryâs cheeks went back on her again. She turned away, ducked her head grimly under the door and went out to sit in the dining room beside Mrs. Hand. Homer Kelly looked at the blank back of the door. Too bad he didnât know one flower from another. Carnations, was it? Peonies, maybe.
Grandmaw Hand was being outrageously charming, chuckling girlishly with Alice Herpitude, recalling the old
âHello, Mr. Goss,â said Mary. She towered over him genially, balancing her jugs of cider, passing the time of day, thinking cheerfully at the same time how much she disliked him. He was as âOld Concordâ as anybody could be, but somehow he didnât ring true. Or he had lost the spirit of the forefathers, or something. He wasnât the only one who had. There were plenty of others like him, well-meaning people with money, living in housees that looked like Christmas cards, spending the summer on the Cape, getting tan, playing tennis, driving around in convertibles, living what was supposed to be the good life. But hollow somehow. Ernest Goss had a handsome wife, four handsome children (well, three anyhow), he talked with an exaggerated nasal Yankee twang, he was a graduate of Exeter and Harvard, he wore tweedy jackets from the Country Store and he kept up the general impression of being the superbly appointed country gentleman. But there was something wrong somewhere. He was like a paper pattern that had been cut out very carefully on the black line. His wife was even more so. Together they bored Mary exceedingly. What she liked to think of as real âOld Concordâ was Grandmaw Hand and her son Tom, and a lot of others like them. They were true squeezings from the Concord grape. The old Barrett place was still a working New England farm, and the Mission armchair and the roll-top desk with the stuffed duck and the plastic globe and the feathery egg-boxes stacked on it and the spindly geraniums in coffee cans and the calendars and the Angelus and the linoleum on the dining room floorâthey were not there to be part of a certain kind of setting, they were just there. And Tom himself, in his overalls, and Mrs. Hand in her husbandâs old hat ⦠But of course it wasnât just a matter of living in the past. Those new families in Henryâs Conantum woods seemed to have soaked up the spirit of plain living and high thinking that had always been the best of Concord, like something given off by the soil, or breathed in the air. It occurred to Mary that Concordâs aboriginal Indians had probably been just another flock of egregious individuals with a passion for sunsets and a taste for abstraction.
She lugged her cider into the little kitchen, ducking under the lintel of the door. And there she ran into the gorilla of the morning. He was leaning gigantically against the hutch-back bench, going over a handful of notes. âExcuse me,â said Mary. She set her cider down on the black stove and opened the door of the cupboard where the paper cups were.
âSo youâre one of them, too,â he said.
Mary looked up at him, and felt her cheeks flare. She knew what his âone of themâ meant. (One of those little provincial biddies who play dolls with Little Women. )
âYes,â she said shortly. He lifted his notes again, and Mary started pouring cider. It felt odd to be in such close quarters with someone bigger than she was. Carefully she poured out twenty-four cups of cider, exerting all her attention so as not to spill any. She turned politely to nod to the gorilla as she finished. The darn man wasnât reading his notes at all. He was looking at her with eyes that were little barbs of concentrated curiosity. She might be some new species of woodchuck or pit viper or something. Maryâs cheeks went back on her again. She turned away, ducked her head grimly under the door and went out to sit in the dining room beside Mrs. Hand. Homer Kelly looked at the blank back of the door. Too bad he didnât know one flower from another. Carnations, was it? Peonies, maybe.
Grandmaw Hand was being outrageously charming, chuckling girlishly with Alice Herpitude, recalling the old
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