Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

The jalopy stood forlorn in our back yard, for Lionel Crossland wouldn’t allow it on their premises. Once in a while I went out and sat in it. Nora came over and sat in it, too. And no doubt wherever Reggie was his ears were burning hot. He wrote long letters to us, telling us to how to run the market. “He’ll be putting the generals straight as to how that war will best be won,” Earl said. He’d met an Australian fellow, Reggie said: “A real guy. Arthur Train his name is. He’s a lot like me. When this war’s over I’m going sheep farming with him in Australia. My dad won’t like it, but then I’ve always told him I’ll never, never be a teacher. I think he’ll not mind too much if I make lots of money, which Arthur and I surely will.”

Earl laughed. “Two of ’em, mind you, Em, over there cooking up the mischief. War’s good as over right now. That Hitler feller might just as well pack it up.”

The war over, Reggie did not come back. Nor did he come to very much harm. He and the Australian went sheep farming together in Australia. “Wait for me,” he wrote Nora. “I shall have enough money soon to set up my own farm back there.” But Nora, a nurse by then, hearing that Reggie had no intention of coming back for three years, feeling sure that someone else had claimed him, did not wait. Her father saw to that. She married Charlie Fitzmaurice. And ten years went by, happily as it turned out, for Nora.

After completing her nursing course, Nora had worked in a hospital for a short while, then had come back to Longvalley. Her first private case being the care of Mrs. Fitzmaurice, Charlie’s mother, she ailing for some time. The Fitzmaurice farm is about a mile outside town along the North Road; its pastures and meadow lands run to the wide river at the foot of the town.

Mrs. Fitzmaurice had taken to Nora from the start. As for Charlie, he’d fallen in love with her right away. They were married that fall, he fifteen years older than she. It was Nora herself who told me: “Emma, he’s a kind and wonderful man. I truly love him. It’s impossible not to. If you’re wondering about Reggie, well, I’ve accepted the fact that by now there is someone else for him. Why not? So long as he’s happy that’s all I should really wish for him.” I had thought I detected a wistful note; but perhaps I read into her voice something that was not there, only the vague disappointment in my own mind. And happy we were for Nora, for no better marriage could have been arranged. The Fitzmaurices were well off, and a good, steady family, too. Charlie and Nora had ten very special years, a rare devotion between the two, for there were no children of the union. And a delight and comfort to the old lady Nora had been, those two years before she died.

Then Charlie Fitzmaurice had a heart attack, leaving Nora floundering, alone on the farm except for Rory O’Brien, the hired man. We’d had no real knowledge of the lonely grief that Nora endured, she with no way to fill the void, for she and Charlie had come upon that kind of peace together that few people find. So Nora had married Bagley thinking, mistakenly, that for her he’d changed his ways; that the two of them could aid each other, for Harry had straightened himself out surprisingly for six consecutive months. A goodlooking fellow, no doubt about that, and but three years older than Nora. And he could turn on the charm when he’d a mind to. Sneaky Harry was past master at that. Making a play for Nora, knowing her loneliness, he’d been available constantly in a useful capacity on the farm, impressing her as he meant to. It was all greed on his part, for he was bent on securing the Fitzmaurice farm and any fortune that Charlie had left. We all knew that what Charlie and his mother had was considerable. And Nora no longer had her dad to advise her.

Nora married him in spite of pleas and warnings. And almost at once found out what that rascal was after. Rory told in town about the beatings when Nora refused him the money he demanded, about the liquor he had hid in the barn. Prize stock Harry sold without Nora’s knowledge, as well as fine and valuable antiques from the house. A heartbreaking year she had endured with him.

If only Charlie Fitzmaurice hadn’t died! If only Reggie hadn’t gone away. If only — no, not a bit of use wishing. But this past year has been a sad one in Longvalley, for we’re not indifferent to the suffering of neighbors and friends. And one could hardly think of Charlie without thinking also of George Banner. George with but months to live, dying of cancer, Charlie’s lifelong friend, and our vet for years. The best in his work, and a fine, kind man besides. And all along there was wastrel Harry Bagley flourishing like the green bay tree. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that, to a man, the people of our community would have wasted no time, had it been possible, in reversing roles for George and Harry. Outspoken they were on the subject, thinking of George.