Unsheltered Read online

  “Let’s be grateful for the dogs’ sake, then. Think of her as a granny that spoils them. Granny Treat!”

  “You aren’t listening to me, Thatcher,” Polly declared. “She’s stolen them. All the other days they stay for a quarter hour in her house and then she lets them out the back, and then they run around and around especially if there is a cat. I think Mrs. Treat encourages them to chase the cats. And then they come back here, or else they lie on her front step and wait for me to fetch them. But today it’s been hours already. Please, please, Thatcher, go and rescue them before it’s too late.”

  He watched Aurelia shove herself back in her chair. The great coiffed head tilted slightly, not toward them directly, but she was listening. Aurelia would be glad for the dogs to remain at large, and only happier if the neighbors’ home removed itself to a different street. She had written one of her letters, so far unprinted, about Mrs. Treat’s untoward behaviors. Thatcher undertook now to whisper.

  “Are you positive the dogs are inside her house, Polly? It will be too embarrassing if I’m bringing a false charge.”

  Polly adjusted herself also to a whisper, but an urgent one. “They are! I swear it’s true, I saw them go in the front and never come out the back. I’ve been waiting on the swing by the carriage house since after breakfast.”

  Reluctantly he went, hat in hand, apologies rehearsed. His morning had already been deeply unhappy, as he was learning not only his house but also his employment rested on precarious foundations. He cast his habitual covetous look over the Treat compound, perfectly kept, even to the little carriage house between their properties with its copper weather vane aligned to true north. Between Rose’s beech and Polly’s oak he strode, around the yew hedge to the Treat front door. He knocked, made himself wait a decent interval, and then knocked again. Stood in the sun’s heat, listening to the insect whine that signaled summer’s end. Watched a suspendered gang of working boys come down Sixth Street swinging their lunch buckets, picks on their shoulders, pausing at the corner of Plum for a loaded wagon to pass. Worn at the edges already, these boys, and so young. Thatcher wondered what manner of child in this town would be at leisure to attend high school. He gave the door a final rap, poised to abandon his mission and frankly disappointed to hear a faint voice encouraging him to enter.

  He stepped inside, let his eyes adjust to the dim foyer, and heard the voice again from the interior. Abashed and unescorted he wandered into the parlor where Mrs. Treat sat at a desk near the window with a book lying open before her. The drapes were open and the room bright with daylight, but he sensed he was intruding on some private ceremony. Mrs. Treat seemed in proper order, dressed in a brown day frock, hatless, hair pinned in place. A trim contrast to Aurelia at her war post in his own parlor. Oddly, Mrs. Treat did not get up. Her eyes darted toward him but she held herself perfectly still.

  “Forgive me, I’m Thatcher Greenwood.” Hat in both hands, held to his chest like a shield. He lowered it. “I live next door.”

  “Of course you do. I am Mary Treat.”

  “I’m sorry my wife and I haven’t called in on you and Dr. Treat. Settling into a house should not be a turmoil and yet we seem to turn over a new one every day. This morning my sister-in-law has commanded me to come inquiring about our hounds. Oh, and here they are!”

  They lay under the desk at her feet, so still that Thatcher hadn’t immediately spotted them. One of the two, Scylla or Charybdis, lifted a cocked head at him briefly, then dropped his chin to the floor again with a sigh.

  “Please sit,” Mrs. Treat urged, sounding deeply unhappy to offer the invitation.

  “I don’t need to trouble you. If I could just relieve you of—”

  “No, please do stay a few minutes. I need the diversion, more desperately than you can imagine.” Apart from an odd little laugh, her stiff countenance was at odds with her appeal for his company. Even the disdainful dogs seemed more welcoming than the mistress of the house. But her words were so extreme, it seemed wrong to refuse.

  He looked around at the room, nicely wallpapered, comfortably used. The upholstered parlor set was neither shabby nor very fine. A sewing bird was clamped to one arm of the settee. A pair of very muddy women’s shoes stood on the hearth drying out from some misfortune, though the parlor stove was of course unlit. Bookcases lined one wall, filled with what he presumed to be artifacts of the doctor’s education. His wife must be missing him terribly to have shut herself into this parlor, harboring dogs and now begging for the company of a stray neighbor.

  Thatcher physically resisted the urge to walk over and read the books’ titles, a magnetism that had controlled him since the day in late childhood when he’d first set eyes on a book. Instead he put himself down on the settee facing Mrs. Treat at her desk. Half a dozen large glass candy jars, unconventionally provisioned, crowded the side table near his elbow. He leaned over for a closer look. Each jar was half filled with soil and planted with a miniature garden of mosses, wildflowers, and ferns. The breath of these small green worlds moistened the inner curve of the jars’ glass shoulders. More of the jars occupied a curiosity table near the bay window and another sat on the desk along with small potted plants amidst jumbled books and papers. Mrs. Treat remained rigidly in place there, not even moving the hand that lay across her open book, holding her place with a finger until this interruption ended.

  “These are unusual,” he said, indicating the jars. “Would you call them terraria?”

  She gave him a long study. Her eyes were an uncommonly dark brown, deep as wells. “You are the science teacher, or will be when the high school opens. Is that right?”

  “Yes. I was just there now, meeting with Professor Cutler to prepare for opening of the term.” Preparation was a mild word for Cutler’s tyrannical bluster, though Thatcher couldn’t speak of it. This town was a nest of acolytes and patrons.

  “Then I will make a confession.” Mrs. Treat’s face slipped into a slight grin, the first sign of a thaw. “The ferns and flowers in those candy jars are a ruse. I put them in so my nervous lady friends can admire the little gardens without being shocked. Which they would be, if they knew the true purpose of these ‘terraria,’ as you call them.”

  “Would I be shocked, if I knew it?”

  “We’re about to see. Each of these jars is the home of a large spider.”

  Thatcher took care with his tone of voice. “A spider?”

  “Yes. Tower-building spiders of the genus Tarantula. They make more interesting pets than even your excellent hounds, Mr. Greenwood.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. And I gather you had more choice than I did, about their coming to live with you.”

  “I did. I capture them out in the garden.”

  “I see. With persuasion or stealth?” Vividly she rose in his memory, the lady facedown in the grass. Rose had guessed spiders, not spider husbandry.

  “It isn’t very difficult,” she said. “I find the nests and dig them out of the ground with a trowel, and settle them into these candy jars. The spiders don’t seem to mind the relocation. Certainly they notice it, but eventually they go on about their business.”

  Thatcher felt his day had taken a turn for the better. “And what is their business?”

  “House building. Can you see?”

  He peered into the jar. He thought himself a good observer, but had missed his own dogs lying under the desk. At length his eye found a construction that must be the tarantula house, exposed by clear design in the midst of randomness: a neat octagonal turret made of sticks as fine as string. The complete domicile would have fit in his hand.

  “What an absolute marvel.”

  In the blink of an eye Mrs. Treat became a new person. She twinkled.

  “Isn’t it? The little builder would agree with you. She is terribly house proud. Once she builds her home she will never leave it. Her favorite position is sitting on the top of her tower with her legs folded under her. Can you see her there?”

  Thatcher
envied the little creature’s instincts for joinery: if her home were dashed down on her head, she could scuttle over the grass and finish a whole new construction before her children’s bedtime. How dire was the descent of a man’s life, Thatcher mused, that he should now be stricken with spider jealousy. He got up and inspected every jar on the table, taking his time, eventually finding in each one the perfect little turret. But not a single landlady.

  “I confess I can’t,” he said. “They don’t seem to be at their posts.”

  “That’s normal. Any unusual noise sends them scurrying indoors. I’m afraid your entrance has frightened them all. You might not see one today.”

  Thatcher turned around and studied Mrs. Treat for some sign that she was having him on. She looked earnest, her dark eyes vivid. She was younger than he’d presumed her to be from a distance, misled by the plainness of her dress. Not Granny Treat at all. Past his own age but in the same decade. Or forty perhaps, at the outside.

  “Will they come out again, after I leave?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re completely accustomed to me, especially that one nearest the armrest there. She allows me to move her jar from one table to another without leaving her post. Just this week she’s begun taking food from my fingers. But if a stranger comes in the room she always seems to know it.”

  “Are they all females?” He sat down again, setting his bowler on his knees.

  “Yes. If I offer them husbands, it doesn’t end well.”

  “Alas. I apologize for intruding on your sorority.”

  “Amply forgiven. One must not become too isolated from human society.”

  Indeed, he thought.

  “I would offer you tea, only my girl Selma has taken the day off to look after her mother. I’m afraid I didn’t plan very well.”

  “You couldn’t know I was coming.”

  “No, but …” She shifted very slightly in her chair. “I mean for my experiment. I did not think ahead, and I’ve accidentally shut the dogs in for hours, and now you are here and I can’t offer you a proper tea.”

  Thatcher turned his hat in his hands, a little alarmed, mostly curious. “Your experiment.”

  “Did you not see? I’m allowing this Dionaea to have a bite of me.”

  “This what?”

  “Dionaea muscipula. The Venus flytrap. Please come have a look, it’s a good specimen. They thrive in the marshes near here in the Pine Barrens. It’s a wonderland for carnivorous plants, Mr. Greenwood. Have you visited the Pine Barrens?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “You will, I’m sure. It will be an inspiring place to take your pupils. I’ve collected five species of pitcher plants and several Utricularia. I’m beginning to think there is something about the poor soil in those swamps that encourages the flora to adapt themselves to carnivory.”

  He cautiously approached Mrs. Treat and leaned in for a look, astonished to have missed the most important activity in the room. She was not sitting idly at a desk holding her place in an open book. She was allowing the tip of her finger to be digested by a carnivorous plant.

  “Gracious,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

  She laughed. “I was asking myself that question when you came in. It may be a problem for the psychologist. Is it knowledge of captivity that causes the pain? I resolved this morning to be a voluntary prisoner for five hours at least. I pulled up my comfortable easy chair here, as you see, and let my arm rest on the table so it isn’t a strain. I gathered plenty of reading matter within arm’s length. Normally I can be happy to sit reading from dawn until dark. What could hinder me from keeping my resolve? But in less than fifteen minutes I found I couldn’t concentrate on this book for the pressure on my finger.”

  “How long have you and this plant been locked in combat, Mrs. Treat?”

  “Since ten o’clock on the nail. For the first hour the pressure seemed to increase, and then my arm began to pain me almost unbearably. But surely I’ve sat still much longer, without any discomfort at all. I feel ashamed that I cannot control my nerves.”

  Thatcher could not stop himself smiling. No need to contrive a botanical nature to meld with this human one. Mrs. Treat was doing the melding herself. “Perhaps I could bring you a cup of tea. If you would allow a man to paw about in your kitchen.”

  “Oh Mr. Greenwood, I’m too much in your debt already. You’ve extended my resolve for an extra quarter hour. We needn’t enslave more than one victim here.”

  “But it would be my pleasure. In the interest of science. What outcome do you anticipate? Surely you don’t mean to sacrifice a digit?”

  “That would be a feast to go down in the Dionaea history books, wouldn’t it? But I don’t think my little friend is up to the task. I only wanted to see whether the same digestive secretions would ooze from the surface of the trap, which has happened, as you see. If I could keep the position longer, I presume it would be more copious.”

  Together they took a silent moment to regard the little plant acquiring its species’ first taste of human flesh. From jars throughout the room, tarantula matrons might have joined the pair, peering with their many eyes over their thresholds at the historic tableau.

  Suddenly the dogs broke the peace, bounding up to lunge at the bay window and bark at a squirrel that had crept down a limb into view. Outside the window the squirrel clung to its limb and chided the dogs, mechanically flicking its tail.

  “Goodness, at least let me rid you of these two wild beasts. I’ll let them out the door and then fetch you some tea.” Before she could object, Thatcher removed himself to the Treat kitchen, opening the front door en route and shooing his canines homeward. With little trouble he located kettle and cups, found the stove still warm from breakfast, and shortly returned with a tray of tea and biscuits. He laid it all out on the desk and pulled up a chair to join her. Mrs. Treat seemed greatly heartened.

  “It must seem a ridiculous undertaking,” she said. “To a man of science.”

  “Not at all. Curiosity can be dangerous but never ridiculous. You wanted to test the capacity of the plant. To know it better.”

  “I become attached, you see. After so many months with these plants, observing them intimately, I begin to feel as if we are of the same world.”

  “But you are of the same world, of course. What have you learned?”

  “Well, it is a story. Mr. Darwin is also very interested in the plant carnivores, and how their unusual habits serve their survival. With this species he was curious to know whether one leaf can catch many flies successively. In his observations, once a leaf has caught a good-size insect it seems to be done in. But his specimens are cultivated in his glasshouse. I have access to a native population. It seemed an opportunity to be useful.”

  “To Mr. Darwin.”

  “Yes,” she said, taking a long draught of tea with her unimprisoned hand. “Our little natives are more vigorous. I’ve informed him it is quite normal for a leaf to take a second insect. Many leaves will even take a third fly, but most aren’t able to digest it. I’ve recorded observations of five leaves that digested three flies each and opened again afterward, ready for another meal from the looks of it. But then they died after closing over the fourth fly.” She helped herself to a biscuit.

  Thatcher took his tea in silence. He saw that the potted plants on her desk were all the same species, the Venus flytrap. Mrs. Treat swallowed and continued. “On the other hand, some leaves aren’t able to digest a single fly.”

  “Do you suppose they get indigestion?” he asked.

  She laughed, revealing a charming set of dimples. “They do have preferences. I fret over them like children, wondering what will suit them best. I’ve fed them beetles and spiders, sometimes millepeds. They don’t care for ants. The most curious thing is that their tastes change with the season. Only late in the summer have they begun showing any interest in the spider that people call grand-daddy-long-legs. Do you know it?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been called on to dispatch qu
ite a few. They cause great upheaval in my household of women. Now I know where I should bring them for disposal.”

  “Oh please do, they are fascinating to watch with the flytraps. They court death by dropping their bodies into the trap with their long legs hanging out, as if they’re trying the trap on for size. And then they are sorry, of course. The legs can go on wriggling for twenty-four hours after the victim is taken in. Sometimes longer.”

  “I hate to say it, but two of the three ladies of my household would pay a fee of admission to watch that awful writhing. Their vendetta against spiders is absolute.”

  “I know the loathing you mean,” she said. “Hence my ruse of the flowers in the tarantula jars, for my lady friends. But do you feel, if girls could have their eyes trained to nature from an early age, they would not be burdened with this exhausting vendetta, as you call it?”

  “I hold out some hope for our Polly, who might yet weep for the dying spider.”

  Mrs. Treat offered a sad little smile. “It is a hard business, the feeding web. I try to refrain from sentiment once the prey is in place. But it can be difficult.”

  “What would happen if you had second thoughts? Let’s say, if you liberated the prisoner after a few hours of incarceration?”

  Now Mrs. Treat grinned like a child who has inveigled an adult into a favorite game. “I expect he would look about, astonished, and then speed away as fast as he could. But only in the first hours. By the second day there is no reprieve.”

  “And then what, it dissolves?”

  “Not quickly. On the average it takes a leaf seven days to digest soft-bodied spiders, flies, and small larvae. Hard-shelled beetles take longer.”

  Thatcher shot a worried glance at Mrs. Treat’s fingertip, held determinedly in place. She seemed to have forgotten all anguish for the moment. “I wonder how you came to have such particular interest in these plants?”