Too Much Happiness

that,” said Old Mrs. Crozier. “Do you want to wreck the door? You couldn’t get through it anyway; it’s solid oak. Every door in this house is solid oak.”
    “Then we have to get the police.”
    There was a pause.
    “They could get up to the window,” said Roxanne.
    Old Mrs. Crozier drew in her breath and spoke decisively.
    “You do not know what you are saying. I won’t have the police in this house. I won’t have them climbing all over my walls like caterpillars.”
    “We don’t know what he could be doing in there.”
    “Well, then, that’s up to him. Isn’t it?”
    Another pause.
    Now steps-Roxanne’s-retreating to the back staircase.
    “Yes, you better,” said Mrs. Crozier. “You better just take yourself away before you forget whose house this is.”
    Roxanne was going down the stairs. A couple of stomps of the stick went after her but did not continue down.
    “And don’t get the idea you’ll go to the constable behind my back. He’s not going to take his orders from you. Who gives the orders around here anyway? It’s certainly not you. You hear me?”
    Very soon I heard the kitchen door slam shut. And then Roxanne’s car start.
    I was no more worried about the police than Old Mrs. Crozier was. The police in our town meant Constable McClarty who came to the school to warn us about sledding on the streets in the winter and swimming in the millrace in summer, both of which we continued to do. It was ridiculous to think of him climbing up on a ladder or lecturing Mr. Crozier through a locked door.
    He would tell Roxanne to mind her own business and let the Croziers mind theirs.
    It was not ridiculous, however, to think of Old Mrs. Crozier giving orders, and I thought she might do so now that Roxanne-whom she apparently did not like anymore-was gone. She might turn on me and demand to know if I had anything to do with this.
    But she did not even rattle the knob. She just stood at the locked door and said one thing.
    “Stronger than you’d think,” she muttered.
    Then made her way downstairs. The usual punishing noises with her steady stick.
    I waited awhile and then I went out to the kitchen. Old Mrs. Crozier wasn’t there. She wasn’t in either parlor or in the dining room or the sunroom. I got up my nerve and knocked on the toilet door, then opened it, and she was not there either. Then I looked out the window over the kitchen sink and I saw her straw hat moving along slowly above the cedar hedge. She was out in the garden in the heat, stumping along between her flower beds.
    I was not worried by the thought that had troubled Roxanne. I did not stop to consider it, because I believed that it would be quite absurd for a person with only a short time to live to commit suicide. It could not happen.
    All the same, I was nervous. I ate two of the macaroons that were still sitting on the kitchen table. I ate them hoping that pleasure would bring back normalcy, but I barely tasted them. Then I shoved the box into the refrigerator so I would not hope to turn the trick by eating more.
    Old Mrs. Crozier was still outside when Sylvia got home. And she didn’t come in then.
    I got the key from between the pages of the book as soon as I heard the car and I gave it to Sylvia as soon as she was in the house. I just told her quickly what had happened, leaving out most of the fuss. She would not have waited to listen to that, anyway. She went running upstairs.
    I stood at the bottom of the stairs to hear what I could hear.
    Nothing. Nothing.
    Then Sylvia’s voice, surprised and upset but in no way desperate, and too low for me to make out what she was saying. Within about five minutes she was downstairs, saying it was time to get me home. She was flushed as if the spots in her cheeks had spread all over her face, and she looked shocked but unable to resist her happiness.
    Then, “Oh. Where is Mother Crozier?”
    “In the flower garden, I think.”
    “Well, I suppose I better speak to her, just for a moment.”
    After she had done that, she no longer looked quite so happy.
    “I suppose you know,” she said as she backed out the car, “I suppose you can imagine Mother Crozier is upset. Not that I am blaming you. It was very good and loyal of you. Doing what Mr. Crozier asked you to do. You weren’t scared of anything happening? With Mr. Crozier? Were you?”
    I said no.
    Then I said, “I think Roxanne was.”
    “Mrs. Hoy? Yes. That’s too bad.”
    As we were driving down what was known