Completely Unexpected Tales Read online

  ‘I’m just going to get a few cigars. I’ll be right with you. You get in the car.’

  She turned and went to where the chauffeur was standing, and he opened the car door for her as she approached.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked him.

  ‘About nine-fifteen.’

  Mr Foster came out five minutes later, and watching him as he walked slowly down the steps, she noticed that his legs were like goat’s legs in those narrow stovepipe trousers that he wore. As on the day before, he paused half-way down to sniff the air and to examine the sky. The weather was still not quite clear, but there was a wisp of sun coming through the mist.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll be lucky this time,’ he said as he settled himself beside her in the car.

  ‘Hurry, please,’ she said to the chauffeur. ‘Don’t bother about the rug. I’ll arrange the rug. Please get going. I’m late.’

  The man went back to his seat behind the wheel and started the engine.

  Just a moment!’ Mr Foster said suddenly. ‘Hold it a moment, chauffeur, will you?’

  ‘What is it, dear?’ She saw him searching the pockets of his overcoat.

  ‘I had a little present I wanted you to take to Ellen,’ he said. ‘Now, where on earth is it? I’m sure I had it in my hand as I came down.’

  ‘I never saw you carrying anything. What sort of present?’

  ‘A little box wrapped up in white paper. I forgot to give it to you yesterday. I don’t want to forget it today.’

  ‘A little box!’ Mrs Foster cried. ‘I never saw any little box!’ She began hunting frantically in the back of the car.

  Her husband continued searching through the pockets of his coat. Then he unbuttoned the coat and felt around in his jacket. ‘Confound it,’ he said, ‘I must’ve left it in my bedroom. I won’t be a moment.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ she cried. ‘We haven’t got time! Please leave it! You can mail it. It’s only one of those silly combs anyway. You’re always giving her combs.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with combs, may I ask?’ he said, furious that she should have forgotten herself for once.

  ‘Nothing, dear, I’m sure. But…’

  ‘Stay here!’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to get it.’

  ‘Be quick, dear! Oh, please be quick!’

  She sat still, waiting and waiting.

  ‘Chauffeur, what time is it?’

  The man had a wristwatch, which he consulted. ‘I make it nearly nine-thirty.’

  ‘Can we get to the airport in an hour?’

  ‘Just about.’

  At this point, Mrs Foster suddenly spotted a corner of something white wedged down in the crack of the seat on the side where her husband had been sitting. She reached over and pulled out a small paper-wrapped box, and at the same time she couldn’t help noticing that it was wedged down firm and deep, as though with the help of a pushing hand.

  ‘Here it is!’ she cried. ‘I’ve found it! Oh dear, and now he’ll be up there for ever searching for it! Chauffeur, quickly – run in and call him down, will you please?’

  The chauffeur, a man with a small rebellious Irish mouth, didn’t care very much for any of this, but he climbed out of the car and went up the steps to the front door of the house. Then he turned and came back. ‘Door’s locked,’ he announced. ‘You got a key?’

  ‘Yes – wait a minute.’ She began hunting madly in her purse. The little face was screwed up tight with anxiety, the lips pushed outward like a spout.

  ‘Here it is! No – I’ll go myself. It’ll be quicker. I know where he’ll be.’

  She hurried out of the car and up the steps to the front door, holding the key in one hand. She slid the key into the keyhole and was about to turn it – and then she stopped. Her head came up, and she stood there absolutely motionless, her whole body arrested right in the middle of all this hurry to turn the key and get into the house, and she waited – five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten seconds, she waited. The way she was standing there, with her head in the air and the body so tense, it seemed as though she were listening for the repetition of some sound that she had heard a moment before from a place far away inside the house.

  Yes – quite obviously she was listening. Her whole attitude was a listening one. She appeared actually to be moving one of her ears closer and closer to the door. Now it was right up against the door, and for still another few seconds she remained in that position, head up, ear to door, hand on key, about to enter but not entering, trying instead, or so it seemed, to hear and to analyse these sounds that were coming faintly from this place deep within the house.

  Then, all at once, she sprang to life again. She withdrew the key from the door and came running back down the steps.

  ‘It’s too late!’ she cried to the chauffeur. ‘I can’t wait for him, I simply can’t. I’ll miss the plane. Hurry now, driver, hurry! To the airport!’

  The chauffeur, had he been watching her closely, might have noticed that her face had turned absolutely white and that the whole expression had suddenly altered. There was no longer that rather soft and silly look. A peculiar hardness had settled itself upon the features. The little mouth, usually so flabby, was now tight and thin, the eyes were bright, and the voice, when she spoke, carried a new note of authority.

  ‘Hurry, driver, hurry!’

  ‘Isn’t your husband travelling with you?’ the man asked, astonished.

  ‘Certainly not! I was only going to drop him at the club. It won’t matter. He’ll understand. He’ll get a cab. Don’t sit there talking, man. Get going! I’ve got a plane to catch for Paris!’

  With Mrs Foster urging him from the back seat, the man drove fast all the way, and she caught her plane with a few minutes to spare. Soon she was high up over the Atlantic, reclining comfortably in her aeroplane chair, listening to the hum of the motors, heading for Paris at last. The new mood was still with her. She felt remarkably strong and, in a queer sort of way, wonderful. She was a trifle breathless with it all, but this was more from pure astonishment at what she had done than anything else, and as the plane flew farther and farther away from New York and East Sixty-second Street, a great sense of calmness began to settle upon her. By the time she reached Paris, she was just as strong and cool as she could wish.

  She met her grandchildren, and they were even more beautiful in the flesh than in their photographs. They were like angels, she told herself, so beautiful they were. And every day she took them for walks, and fed them cakes, and bought them presents, and told them charming stories.

  Once a week, on Tuesdays, she wrote a letter to her husband – a nice, chatty letter – full of news and gossip, which always ended with the words ‘Now be sure to take your meals regularly, dear, although this is something I’m afraid you may not be doing when I’m not with you.’

  When six weeks were up, everybody was sad that she had to return to America, to her husband. Everybody, that is, except her. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem to mind as much as one might have expected, and when she kissed them all good-bye, there was something in her manner and in the things she said that appeared to hint at the possibility of a return in the not too distant future.

  However, like the faithful wife she was, she did not overstay her time. Exactly six weeks after she had arrived, she sent a cable to her husband and caught the plane back to New York.

  Arriving at Idlewild, Mrs Foster was interested to observe that there was no car to meet her. It is possible that she might even have been a little amused. But she was extremely calm and did not overtip the porter who helped her into a taxi with her baggage.

  New York was colder than Paris, and there were lumps of dirty snow lying in the gutters of the streets. The taxi drew up before the house on Sixty-second Street, and Mrs Foster persuaded the driver to carry her two large cases to the top of the steps. Then she paid him off and rang the bell. She waited, but there was no answer. Just to make sure, she rang again, and she could hear it tinkling shrilly far away in the pantry, at th