Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

been watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.

He asked abruptly, “Do you know anything of a girl around here named Mary Alice Pope?”

The silence lasted so long that he began to think she’d gone into some bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked in his breath with surprise.

It was a picture of the girl he’d met that afternoon. Same flat-bosomed dress⁠—flowered rather than white⁠—no bandeau, same beads. Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.

“That is Mary Alice Pope,” Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat voice. “She was Martin’s fiancée. She was killed in a railway accident in 1933.”

The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich’s white face looked at him with what seemed a malicious eagerness.

“Sit down,” she said, “and I’ll tell you about it.”

Without a thought as to why she hadn’t asked him a single question⁠—he was much too dazed for that⁠—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her position on the edge of the sofa.

“You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love of Martin’s life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him⁠—or rather about the three of them.

“Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud⁠—I don’t imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant⁠—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn’t realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They’d thought that since he’d reached forty without marrying, he was safe.

“Mary Alice came from a purebred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda’s feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda’s favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But⁠—and here is where Mary’s wisdom fell short⁠—her brave gesture did not pacify them: it only increased their hatred.

“Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as narrow and intense as his sisters hatred.”

With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him all this.

She went on, “Martin’s love directed his every move. He was building a home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful future for them as well⁠—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by year, month by month. This winter, he’d plan, they would visit Buenos Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Budapest the year after, where he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months⁠ ⁠… and so on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been away. His research was keeping him very busy⁠—”

Jack broke in with, “Wasn’t that about the time he did his definitive work on growth and fertilization?”

Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering darkness. “But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the saddle to welcome him home.

“Of course there was Martin’s luggage to be considered, so the station wagon had to be sent down for that.” She looked defiantly at Jack. “I drove the station wagon. I was Martin’s laboratory assistant.”

She paused. “It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the gravel of the crossing.

“Suddenly Mary’s horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and Hilda followed⁠—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn’t manage that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight’s glare.

“Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary⁠—I mean, what had been Mary⁠—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms.”

A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened and was silent. Jack turned.

The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall⁠—a seemingly young, sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.

“Hello, Barr,” Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.

The great biologist had come home.