The Servant Problem | Page 3

of a gasoline lantern. "The village power-supply was shut off
yesterday," Judith Darrow explained, pumping the lantern into renewed
brightness. She glanced at him sideways. "Did you have dinner?"
"As a matter of fact--no. But please don't--"
"Bother? I couldn't if I wanted to. My larder is on its last legs. But sit
down, and I'll make you some sandwiches. I'll make a pot of coffee
too--the gas hasn't been turned off yet."
* * * * *
The living room had precisely three articles of furniture to its
name--two armchairs and a coffee table. After Judith left him, Philip set
his brief case on the floor and sat down in one of the chairs. He
wondered idly how she expected to make the trip to Pfleugersville. He
had seen no car in the driveway, and there was no garage on the
property in which one could be concealed. Moreover, it was highly
unlikely that buses serviced the village any more. Valleyview had been
bypassed quite some time ago by one of the new super-duper highways.
He shrugged. Getting to Pfleugersville was her problem, not his.
He returned his attention to the living room. It was a large room. The
house was large, too--large and Victorianesque. Judith, apparently, had

opened the back door, for a breeze was wafting through the downstairs
rooms--a breeze laden with the scent of flowers and the dew-damp
breath of growing grass. He frowned. The month was October, not June,
and since when did flowers bloom and grass grow in October? He
concluded that the scent must be artificial.
Zarathustra was regarding him with large golden eyes from the middle
of the living-room floor. The animal did somehow bring to mind a little
old man, although he could not have been more than two or three years
old. "You're not very good company," Philip said.
"Ruf," said Zarathustra, and turning, trotted through an archway into a
large room that, judging from the empty shelves lining its walls, had
once been a library, and thence through another archway into another
room--the dining room, undoubtedly--and out of sight.
Philip leaned back wearily in the armchair he had chosen. He was beat.
Take six days a week, ten hours a day, and multiply by fifty-two and
you get three hundred and twelve. Three hundred and twelve days a
year, hunting down clients, talking, walking, driving, expounding;
trying in his early thirties to build the foundation he should have begun
building in his early twenties--the foundation for the family he had
suddenly realized he wanted and someday hoped to have. Sometimes
he wished that ambition had missed him altogether instead of waiting
for so long to strike. Sometimes he wished he could have gone right on
being what he once had been. After all, there was nothing wrong in
living in cheap hotels and even cheaper rooming houses; there was
nothing wrong in being a lackadaisical door-to-door salesman with
run-down heels.
Nothing wrong, that is, except the aching want that came over you
sometimes, and the loneliness of long and empty evenings.
Zarathustra had re-entered the room and was sitting in the middle of the
floor again. He had not returned empty-handed--or rather,
empty-mouthed--although the object he had brought with him was not
the sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was a rose--

A green rose.
* * * * *
Disbelievingly, Philip leaned forward and took it from the animal's
mouth. Before he had a chance to examine it, however, footsteps
sounded in the next room, and prompted by he knew not what, he thrust
the rose into his suitcoat pocket. An instant later, Judith Darrow came
through the archway bearing a large tray. After setting it down on the
coffee table, she poured two cups of coffee from a little silver pot and
indicated a plate of sandwiches. "Please help yourself," she said.
She sat down in the other chair and sipped her coffee. He had one of
the sandwiches, found that he didn't want any more. Somehow, her
proximity, coupled with her silence, made him feel uncomfortable.
"Has your husband already left for Pfleugersville?" he asked politely.
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?"