298: Dan inspected Herb.
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 8 continues
Dan inspected Herb. Behind Dan, a door opened, and a squat man in coveralls emerged from it. Herb smiled and nodded at him. “You related to the Feasters?” Dan asked.
“No,” said Herb. “The name’s Piper, Herb Piper. I don’t have any relatives here — I don’t even know anyone here.” He extended his hand. Neither Dan nor Speedy made a move to shake it.
“The wife?” asked Dan.
“No, no. We just came to Babbington because — ”
Herb had been about to describe the method that Lorna had used to choose Babbington as a place for them to live, but he thought better of it. It would, he knew, seem ridiculous, and, worse than that, it might seem insulting. After all, wouldn’t he be saying that he and Lorna had come to Babbington because they knew that they could be happy wherever they went, that their love, their benevolent giant, would follow them anywhere? You can’t say that to a person, Herb thought, say that this place, the place where he lives, seems to you only as good as any other place — no better, no worse.
“Because what?” asked Dan. There was a new chill in his voice.
“Well, because we heard nice things about it,” Herb lied. He certainly didn’t want to begin his life in Babbington by offending the civic pride of, or arousing the suspicions of, the police. “That is, my wife did,” he said, his mind racing. “See, my wife is from Chacallit, upstate, not far from Albany, and — um — when she was a little girl some people from Babbington were passing through, and — ”
“That would be the Sutphens, I’ll bet,” said Speedy, folding his arms across his chest.
“The Sutphens!” said Herb, eager to establish some link between Lorna and himself and the town. “It probably was! Yes, it probably was. The Sutphens.”
“Went to Canada,” said Speedy. Herb nodded enthusiastically.
“Fled to Canada,” said Dan. “Probably passed through this place your wife’s from — Whatchamacallit — ”
“Chacallit.”
“Right. Wilfred and Elizabeth Sutphen. Wilfred was accused of embezzling, went to trial, wasn’t convicted.”
“Not guilty,” said Herb, nodding again.
“Not convicted,” said Dan.
“Uh-huh,” said Herb, who was beginning to wonder how long it would take to drive to West Burke, Vermont.
“Nobody ever found the money,” said Speedy.
“I read where Wilfred died just a few weeks ago,” said Dan.
“Fell off a horse in front of a truck,” said Speedy.
“I remember the headline on his obit,” said Dan. He held his hands in front of him with his thumbs and index fingers spread and drew them apart to suggest a banner headline. “ ‘Former Babbingtonian Dies in Wolf Snout, Manitoba,’ it said. And then under that, smaller, it said, ‘Wilfred Sutphen, 58, Alleged Embezzler.’ ”
“Well,” said Herb, “I’m sure it was somebody else, then, not the Sutphens, but whoever it was, these people made the town sound so wonderful that my wife fell in love with the place.”
“She fell in love with it without even seeing it?” asked Speedy. He didn’t look like a man convinced. Herb asked himself why he hadn’t just told the truth. He was backing farther and farther into a corner. This was not getting off on the right foot.
“She — ” said Herb. He sighed. He didn’t know what to say next. The door opened. Lorna walked in. “Lorna!” he said. “Lorna. I — was just trying to explain to — um, Officer — um — and Mr. Speedy how it was that we decided to settle here in Babbington, why it had to be this town and no other. Not as if we just picked out any old town on a map — and they were wondering how it was that you fell in love with the place without ever having seen it.”
“I saw it in my mind’s eye,” said Lorna, “in my imagination. The little seacoast town. The neat houses.” She stopped. Dan and Speedy wore looks that said they expected more.
“The — uh, church steeples,” offered Herb. “The — red and yellow leaves on the trees in the fall.”
“Schoolchildren on their way to — school,” said Lorna.
“The glowing streetlamps,” said Herb.
Lorna held her hands up as if calling for silence and half closed her eyes. “The night, the glowing streetlamps, the people asleep in their cozy beds, in their neat houses, safe and warm, while trusty guardians keep watch through the night.” She smiled. She wore the look of an enchanted child, envisioning her Shangri-La.
Dan and Speedy smiled back. They looked enchanted themselves. “And after all these years, here you are at last,” Dan said.
Lorna smiled her answer.
“Well, I hope you won’t be disappointed,” said Speedy. “A lot of times, you find out that things aren’t everything you were hoping they’d be, you know? You get an idea all worked up in your mind about how something is going to be and then, brother, are you in for a surprise. Take right now, for instance. I’ll bet you didn’t imagine that when you got to Babbington, you’d be caught in a rainstorm like this, did you?”
Lorna couldn’t resist. “Oh, I did,” she said, breathless, her eyes shining. “I imagined it just like this.”
“What?” said Speedy, his eyes widening. “Howling wind, driving rain, and you all wet and shivering — that’s the way you imagined it?”
“Yes,” said Lorna, still the enchanted girl.
“And you fell in love with it?”
A nod full of charm, those bright eyes.
“Boy, oh boy, love is a crazy thing,” said Dan, grinning and shaking his head. “A woman can fall in love with the—” He caught himself. Confused, he looked at Lorna. He found no help in her smile. To change the subject, he asked, “Where — um — where did you imagine you two were going to stay?”
Lorna closed her eyes. “A small hotel — ” she said.
“Mm-hm,” said Dan.
“Yeah,” said Speedy.
“ — where salesmen stay sometimes — ”
“Mm.”
“Yep.”
“ — with a small dining room — ”
“Gosh.”
“Brother.”
“ — not far from here.”
“That’s got to be the River Sound Hotel!” said Dan. His eyes were wide.
“Couldn’t be anyplace else,” said Speedy. “That’s it, plain as day.”
“Amazing,” said Dan. He let his mouth hang open.
[to be continued on Wednesday, July 20, 2022]
In Topical Guide 298, Mark Dorset considers Babbington from this episode.
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