In the Still of the Night

Walker.“
    “But only the Prinneys know our true situation. If you aren’t honest with people, you can’t consider them friends.“
    “We could wear breadboards saying, ‘Once rich, now poor,’ “ Robert said.
    Lily laughed and said, “I’m still too much of a snob. Every now and then I get a furious itch to put on my best clothes and go to a real debutante ball with all the glitter and silliness.”
    Robert shuddered. “Euww. I hope the urge to cavort about with debutantes is something that passes off quickly. Some of my most hideous memories are debs dances. Girls who were spotty and coltish six months earlier queening it over their little sisters and wearing far too much of their mothers’ jewelry.”
    They greeted a few more of the townspeople down by the bench where Lily and Robert often sat and watched the river traffic pass by, and then headed back to the heart of the fête nearer the mansion.
    The town butcher had started a fire in a pit that the brother and sister had always wondered about the purpose of, and was cooking big marvelous-smelling sausages on sticks to sell. A farmer from just outside town was offering glasses of buttermilk and his wife was busy running down the empty glasses and recovering them to be rinsed out for reuse. The quilting society ladies were using the clothesline to display their best quilts, which were spectacular.
    Children had brought cats and dogs and piglets and rabbits to show off for the pet show. Robert went around complimenting the children and stroking the pets, all except the piglets.
    “If I get through without ever touching a live pig, I will consider it a life well lived,“ he muttered to Lily.
    Some of the ladies of town who kept vegetable gardens—as almost all did these days—were selling or giving away their extra canned beans, tomatoes and onions. Others had afghans and hand-knitted hats and gloves and shawls to sell.
    Few people had extra money to purchase these items, and everyone knew it, but part of the point was simply to show off good work. A quart of green beans laid in the bottle in an elaborate wickerworklike pattern, or a baby blanket with exceptionally fine knitting, was a mark that they hadn’t let down their standards and wouldn’t do so no matter how tough times got.
    And the crowd that had turned out early continued to grow. It seemed that virtually the entire town had shown up. Perhaps some of them had even come from nearby towns. Many called each other “aunt“ and “uncle“ and “cousin,“ even if the blood relationships were distant. This made Lily sad. She’d lost her parents, and was no longer the social peer of most of her cousins who were too far flung to run into at a party. She had misplaced Robert in the crowd and looked for him.
    Instead, she spotted Cecil Hoornart wandering around, looking bemused.
    “Are you enjoying this?“ Lily asked.
    “It certainly is something you’d never see in the City. Where did all these people come from?”
    Lily shrugged. “I have no idea. Robert and I are newcomers and hardly know any more of these people than you do. I recognize the butcher, the greengrocer and the librarian, and the lady with the pincurl hair without the pins is Mr. Prinney’s secretary.“
    “That’s frightening hair, isn’t it?“ Cecil said with a laugh.
    “You’re feeling happier today, aren’t you?“
    “I got back to my secretary and she does have at least half the book on carbons,“ he said. “I’m still upset about the good copy, but I haven’t lost everything. But I’m still convinced that someone stole it and disposed of it and that worries me. It had to be West. Who else would be interested?“
    “Lorna Ethridge? Maybe she thought you’d put something unflattering about her in it.“
    “How could I have? I’d never heard of her.“
    “But she told Addie she’d been engaged to Julian West. If it was true, and if she thought you knew it and might name her in your book as his jilted lover... ?“
    “I don’t see how she’d have had time after that first night’s dinner. We rejoined the ladies quite soon after it. How could she have taken it and so thoroughly hidden it so quickly? Unless she took it while I was interviewing West? And even if I had known about their engagement, if there ever was one, I probably wouldn’t mention the woman’s name unless she was a prominent individual.“
    “But she wouldn’t have known that either. I’m not convinced she’s the thief,