The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

that? What does she think it’s going to get her?”
    â€œPerhaps it helps her asthma.”
    â€œIf it was one of
my
gels,” Mrs. Willow said with feeling, “I’d see that she managed it altogether different; she’s got the kid, after all, and there’s no one else, you’ve
got
to leave it to the kid unless she fouls it up somehow. She could be talking the kid right out of everything; what she wants to do is keep her mouth shut until it
counts
. Well.” She sighed. “You always see other people getting the good chances.”
    â€œYou might tell your daughter Arabella that Essex is penniless.”
    â€œWhat?” Mrs. Willow glanced up sharply. “Yes? Well, I’ll tell her. You know,” she went on slowly, “they’re not bad girls. That is,” she said unwillingly, “they’re probably bad girls the way we understood it when you and I were bad girls . . . I mean,
bad
. But they’re not dishonest, or unkind. Not bad girls.”
    â€œJust
bad
.” Mrs. Halloran smiled.
    â€œYou remember, do you? Then you see they do deserve some kind of help? After all . . .” Mrs. Willow shrugged, and was silent. After a minute or so, during which Mrs. Halloran regained her pen hopefully, Mrs. Willow went on, “I tell you, Orianna, I’ve
got
to get rid of those girls; every time some young fellow looks twice at Belle or dances with Julia my hands start to shake and I get so anxious my teeth chatter. I just can’t afford them much longer, and you can see as well as I do that they’re not up to most of the competition they meet; Belle’s past twenty-five and even her hairdresser—”
    â€œI suppose it’s too late for them to learn shorthand?”
    â€œIt’s almost too late for them to learn new dances,” Mrs. Willow said sullenly. In a fever of irritation she put out her cigarette and got up to pace furiously up and down the satin room. “For God’s sake,” she said, “I’d take
any
body. Even somebody penniless. If he had rich friends.”
    There was a long silence. Mrs. Willow walked back and forth, eyeing the draperies, the jade cigarette box, the fine thin legs of the furniture. Mrs. Halloran stared down at her desk, at her unfinished accounts. Then Mrs. Willow said abruptly, “What a
hell
of a thing to do,” and Mrs. Halloran raised her head. “Orianna,” Mrs. Willow said, “what is this?”
    Mrs. Halloran turned curiously, and Mrs. Willow said, “Look at this thing. It’s disgusting. What’s the idea?”
    â€œAugusta,” Mrs. Halloran said, “I can generally follow your conversation, since it rarely departs from one or two favorite subjects. But I confess that at present—”
    â€œLook, then, damn it. If you don’t want people to see it why do you leave it standing there?” Mrs. Willow brought it over; it was a framed photograph of Mrs. Halloran with a hatpin pushed through the tinted throat so that the pin stood out, wickedly behind the photograph and the rhinestone head of the pin sparkled like a huge diamond against the throat of Mrs. Halloran in the photograph.
    â€œDear me,” said Mrs. Halloran. She took the photograph in her hand and looked at it thoughtfully. Then, “No,” she said, handing it back, “I have no idea how it got there.”
    â€œHell of a practical joke,” said Mrs. Willow, pulling at the hatpin. “Hardly get it out.”
    â€œThen leave it in,” Mrs. Halloran said indifferently.
    â€œIt gives me the creeps. There.” Mrs. Willow set the picture down and the hatpin on the low table beside it. “Well,” she said, running her finger carefully along the picture frame, “do you think you can?”
    â€œCan what, Augusta?”
    â€œDo a little something for my gels—girls? Not much, just something?”
    â€œI believe