Page:Weird Tales v41n04 (1949-05).djvu/66

64 weaving. She gave her prospective mother-in-law Mrs. Renner’s address. Lucy knew that Stan's mother, with whom she was on exceptionally good terms, would be pleased with the odd bit of weaving and was sure it would be shown to Stan when he came home over the week-end from his senior medical course studies.

The antimacassar wasn’t as crazy-looking as she had at first imagined. It was a neat piece of work, even if the central design was loosely haphazard. The decorative blocks at corners and center top and bottom weren’t so poorly designed and the irregular markings through the center were amusing; they looked like some kind of ancient symbols. Mrs. Brunner would be charmed to receive an authentic piece of obviously original weaving. Lucy promised herself to find out about the weaver, once she had gained her landlady’s confidence.

She had asked Mrs. Renner outright if ever a Miss Cora Kent had been at the Renner place and her landlady had eyed her strangely and denied ever having heard the name, even. On Friday morning, her second day on the Renner farm, Aaron Gross brought Lucy a package from the Doylestown laundry, where she had left lingerie. He acted so suspicious and fearful that she was puzzled. When she stripped the covering from the package, he took it and crumpled it as if he were afraid someone would know she had given her address freely before going to the farm. Lucy counted the small pieces; there were eleven instead of ten. There was an extra handkerchief and it was initialed. It was then that Lucy received the first impact of ominous intuition. The handkerchief carried the intials "C. K." Cora Kent must have lived somewhere in the vicinity.

There was a penciled note from the laundry. The handkerchief had been mistakenly delivered to another customer and was now being returned apologetically to its owner’s address. Cora Kent had been to the Renner farm. Mrs. Renner had lied deliberately when she said she had never heard the name.

Lucy looked up at the sound of a rustling starched skirt, to find Mrs. Renner staring down at Cora’s handkerchief, sallow brow furrowed, lips a straight line, black eyes narrowed. Mrs. Renner said nothing; she only stared. Then she turned suddenly on her heel and marched into the house. Lucy was disturbed without actually knowing why, yet Mrs. Renner’s deliberate lie was in itself a puzzle.

HIS was only one of the small things that began to trouble her, like the locked door that confined Kathy Renner. Mrs. Renner had said definitely that she didn’t want people barging in on Kathy, perhaps getting her all excited, what with the danger of heart trouble on account of the rheumatic fever. Kathy, it would appear, slept all day for Lucy was asked to be very quiet about the house in daytime. At night noise didn’t disturb the little sick girl because then she would be awake anyway.

Lucy sat up in bed now and listened to the child’s whining complaint. Why didn’t Kathy’s mother give the poor child’s something to eat? Surely starvation was not included in a regimen for rheumatic fever? There was the faint sound of a door opening and the wails subsided. Lucy lay down then and slipped comfortably off to sleep, feeling that Kathy’s needs had been met.

Mrs. Renner’s enigmatic remarks and Aaron’s peevish disapproval of his employer’s behavior on some former occasion dimmed as sleep stilled Lucy’s active mind. It was not until afternoon of the following day that Lucy, entering her room to get her scissors so that she might use them when weaving, noticed with sudden sharp recollection of her landlady’s whispered words of the previous night that the vase of honeysuckle was conspicuous by its absence. She asked herself vainly what connection had honeysuckle to do with Kathy’s wailing cry of hunger? Or, for that matter, with herself?

With the vague idea of blocking Mrs. Renner’s contemplated design hinted to Aaron Friday night, Lucy managed to pluck several sprays of lilac and honeysuckle from her open window, smartly avoiding carrying them through the house. She put them into the heavy stoneware tooth-mug that stood on the washstand. To remove these flowers, Mrs. Renner must come out into the open and explain her reason for taking them away, thought Lucy mischievously.