The Servant Problem, Robert F. Young [books to read in a lifetime txt] 📗
- Author: Robert F. Young
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Her gray-green eyes grew cold. “Yes, he left quite some time ago,” she said. “A year ago, as a matter of fact. But for parts unknown, not Pfleugersville. Pfleugersville wasn't accessible then, anyway. He had a brunette on one arm, a redhead on the other, and a pint of Cutty Sark in his hip pocket.”
Philip was distressed. “I … I didn't mean to pry,” he said. “I'm—”
“Sorry? Why should you be? Some men are born to settle down and raise children and others are born to drink and philander. It's as simple as that.”
“Is it?” something made Philip ask. “Into which category would you say I fall?”
“You're in a class by yourself.” Tiny silver flecks had come into her eyes, and he realized to his astonishment that they were flecks of malevolence. “You've never married, but playing the field hasn't made you one hundred per cent cynical. You're still convinced that somewhere there is a woman worthy of your devotion. And you're quite right—the world is full of them.”
His face tingled as though she had slapped it, and in a sense, she had. He restrained his anger with difficulty. “I didn't know that my celibacy was that noticeable,” he said.
“It isn't. I took the liberty of having a private investigator check into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum integrity to contract it with. I had to go far and wide to find you.”
“You're being unfair,” Philip said, mollified despite himself. “Most real-estate agents are honest. As a matter of fact, there's one in the same office building with me that I'd trust with the family jewels—if I had any family jewels.”
“Good,” Judith Darrow said. “I gambled on you knowing someone like that.”
He waited for her to elaborate, and when she did not he finished his coffee and stood up. “If you don't mind, I'll turn in,” he said. “I've had a pretty hard day.”
“I'll show you your room.”
She got two candles, lit them, and after placing them in gilt candlesticks, handed one of the candlesticks to him. The room was on the third floor in under the eaves—as faraway from hers, probably, as the size of the house permitted. Philip did not mind. He liked to sleep in rooms under eaves. There was an enchantment about the rain on the roof that people who slept in less celestial bowers never got to know. After Judith left, he threw open the single window and undressed and climbed into bed. Remembering the rose, he got it out of his coat pocket and examined it by candlelight. It was green all right—even greener than he had at first thought. Its scent was reminiscent of the summer breeze that was blowing through the downstairs rooms, though not at all in keeping with the chill October air that was coming through his bedroom window. He laid it on the table beside the bed and blew out the candle. He would go looking for the bush tomorrow.
Philip was an early riser, and dawn had not yet departed when, fully dressed, he left the room with the rose in his coat pocket and quietly descended the stairs. Entering the living room, he found Zarathustra curled up in one of the armchairs, and for a moment he had the eerie impression that the animal had extended one of his shaggy ears and was scratching his back with it. When Philip did a doubletake, however, the ear was back to normal size and reposing on its owner's tawny cheek. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he said, “Come on, Zarathustra, we're going for a walk.”
He headed for the back door, Zarathustra at his heels. A double door leading off the dining room barred his way and proved to be locked. Frowning, he returned to the living room. “All right,” he said to Zarathustra, “we'll go out the front way then.”
He walked around the side of the house, his canine companion trotting beside him. The side yard turned out to be disappointing. It contained no roses—green ones, or any other kind. About all it did contain that was worthy of notice was a dog house—an ancient affair that was much too large for Zarathustra and which probably dated from the days when Judith had owned a larger dog. The yard itself was a mess: the grass hadn't been cut all summer, the shrubbery was ragged, and dead leaves lay everywhere. A similar state of affairs existed next door, and glancing across lots, he saw that the same desuetude prevailed throughout the entire neighborhood. Obviously the good citizens of Valleyview had lost interest in their real estate long before they had moved out.
At length his explorations led him to the back door. If there were green roses anywhere, the trellis that adorned the small back porch was the logical place for them to be. He found nothing but bedraggled Virginia creeper and more dead leaves.
He tried the back door, and finding it locked, circled the rest of the way around the house. Judith was waiting for him on the front porch. “How nice of you to walk Zarathustra,” she said icily. “I do hope you found the yard in order.”
The yellow dress she was wearing did not match the tone of her voice, and the frilly blue apron tied round her waist belied the frostiness of her gray-green eyes. Nevertheless, her rancor was real. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn't know your back yard was out of bounds.” Then, “If you'll give me a list of the places you want evaluated, I'll get started right away.”
“I'll take you around again personally—after we have breakfast.”
Again he was consigned to the living room while she performed the necessary culinary operations, and again she served him by tray. Clearly she did not want him in the kitchen, or anywhere near it. He was not much of a one for mysteries, but this one was intriguing him more and more by the minute.
Breakfast over, she told him to wait on the front porch while she did the dishes, and instructed Zarathustra to keep him company. She had two voices: the one she used in addressing Zarathustra contained overtones of summer, and the one she used in addressing Philip contained overtones of fall. “Some day,” Philip told the little dog, “that chip she carries on her shoulder is going to fall off of its own accord, and by then it will be too late—the way it was too late for me when I found out that the person I'd been running away from all my life was myself in wolf's clothing.”
“Ruf,” said Zarathustra, looking up at him with benign golden eyes. “Ruf-ruf!”
Presently Judith re-appeared, sans apron, and the three of them set forth into the golden October day. It was Philip's first experience in evaluating an entire village, but he had a knack for estimating the worth of property, and by the time noon came around, he had the job half done. “If you people had made even half an effort to keep your places up,” he told Judith over cold-cut sandwiches and coffee in her living room, “we could have asked for a third again as much. Why in the world did you let everything go to pot just because you were moving some place else?”
She shrugged. “It's hard to get anyone to do housework these days—not to mention gardening. Besides, in addition to the servant problem, there's another consideration—human nature. When you've lived in a shack all your life and you suddenly acquire a palace, you cease caring very much what the shack looks like.”
“Shack!” Philip was indignant. “Why, this house is lovely! Practically every house you've shown me is lovely. Old, yes—but oldness is an essential part of the loveliness of houses. If Pfleugersville is on the order of most housing developments I've seen, you and your neighbors are going to be good and sorry one of these fine days!”
“But Pfleugersville isn't on the order of most housing developments you've seen. In fact, it's not a housing development at all. But let's not go into that. Anyway, we're concerned with Valleyview, not Pfleugersville.”
“Very well,” Philip said. “This afternoon should wind things up so far as the appraising goes.”
That evening, after a coffee-less supper—both the gas and the water had been turned off that afternoon—he totaled up his figures. They made quite a respectable sum. He looked across the coffee table, which he had commandeered as a desk, to where Judith, with the dubious help of Zarathustra, was sorting out a pile of manila envelopes which she had placed in the middle of the living-room floor. “I'll do my best to sell everything,” he said, “but it's going to be difficult going till we get a few families living here. People are reluctant about moving into empty neighborhoods, and businessmen aren't keen about opening up business places before the customers are available. But I think it'll work out all right. There's a plaza not far from here that will provide a place to shop until the local markets are functioning, and Valleyview is part of a centralized school district.” He slipped the paper he had been figuring on into his brief case, closed the case and stood up. “I'll keep in touch with you.”
Judith shook her head. “You'll do nothing of the sort. As soon as you leave, I'm moving to Pfleugersville. My business here is finished.”
“I'll keep in touch with you there then. All you have to do is give me your address and phone number.”
She shook her head again. “I could give you both, but neither would do you any good. But that's beside the point. Valleyview is your responsibility now—not mine.”
Philip sat back down again. “You can start explaining any time,” he said.
“It's very simple. The property owners of Valleyview signed all of their houses and places of business over to me. I, in turn, have signed all of them over to you—with the qualification, of course, that after selling them you will be entitled to no more than your usual commission.” She withdrew a paper from one of the manila envelopes. “After selling them,” she went on, “you are to divide the proceeds equally among the four charities specified in this contract.” She handed him the paper. “Do you understand now why I tried so hard to find a trustworthy agent?”
Philip was staring at the paper, unable, in his astonishment, to read the words it contained. “Suppose,” he said presently, “that circumstances should make it impossible for me to carry out my end of the agreement?”
“In case of illness, you will already have taken the necessary steps to transfer the property to another agent who, in your opinion, is as completely honest as you are, and in case of death, you will already have taken the necessary steps to bequeath the property to the same agent; and he, in both cases, will already have agreed to the terms laid down in the contract you're holding in your hands. Why don't you read it?”
Now that his astonishment had abated somewhat, Philip found that he could do so. “But this still doesn't make sense,” he said a short while later. “Obviously you and the rest of the owners have purchased new houses. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask how you're going to pay for them when you're virtually giving your old houses away?”
“I'm afraid it would be, Mr. Myles.” She withdrew another paper from the envelope and handed it to him. “This is the other copy. If you'll kindly affix your signature to both, we can bring our business to a close. As you'll notice, I've already signed.”
“But if you're going to be incommunicado,” Philip pointed out, anger building up in him despite all he could do to stop it, “what good will your copy do you?”
Judith's countenance took on a glacial quality. So did her voice. “My copy will go into the hands of a trusted attorney, sealed in an envelope which I have already instructed him not to open till five years from this date. If, at the time it is opened, you have violated the terms of our agreement, he will institute legal proceedings at once. Fortunately, although the Valleyview post office is closed, a mail truck passes through every weekday evening at eight. It's not that I don't trust you, Mr. Myles—but you are a man, you
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