The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1940-06-22
Chapter 26
The Wick Women y

The Wick Women -
MRS. ARNoLDiS Dorothy was
Iva an excellent nurse. Brenda
rousing at two with a panicky
feeling that she had deserted
Adelaide too long, peeped into the
door and saw the thickset woman
lifting Mrs. Rosttetor effortlessly
in one arm while she shook and
smoothed the pillows, straight
ened the wrinkled sheet with the
other hand. Adelaide was muir
muring contentedly.
It was during this time Of
trouble-for Adelaide was grave
1y i'll, not so much from any spe-
cific disease but from sheer weak
neSs-that Brenda came really to
know and love The Shortest
Street.
1t was as though one roof shell
tered all the families, one topic
concerned them all. Judge Harper
and Hugh came twice day to in
quire for Adelaide. They brought
flowers. fruit - anything they
could think of which might make
her illness more bearable to the
patient, the nursing easier for
those who cared for her.
!. The Misses Ponsonby whom
Brenda hardly knew slipped in
and out like gentle wraiths, dust
ing the. living room (grief for her
employer had made Grenadine
doubly careless), quietly taking
change Of Adelaide's small per-
sonal mail, and generally making
themselves useful. And out from
their seclusion came two women
previously known to Brenda only
as "the Wicks.'
Isobel had described them to
Brenda the week after her ar
rival.
"Not that I've seen them" she
FASTENED to say. Nobody in this
house has ever laid eyes on them
but Adelaide. They're recluses.
The only exercise they take is in
their own back yard after dark,
and they've let the hedges grow so
high that nobody can see them
even then. They do all their order
ing by telephone. Even the de-
livery men have orders to put
their packages on the back porch
and go away"
"But-but what made them like
that?" Brenda's eyes were wide.
"a tragedy. It seems that the
man Miss Wick was engaged to
was driving out to dinner with
her father, and both were killed
in an accident. It was a double
bereavement to the girl, you see,
and er gradually became
lier daughters melan-
0SHad. and refused to see people
just as Miss Wick did"
real melancholia?"
mot in the pathological sense,
believe, though it well may have
become so by now. It started with
Mrs. Wick having to keep callers
away from the girl, and ended by
her getting the same twist, I sup
pose"
slow long ago was this?"
Seventeen years"
Brenda was dumbfounded. "You
don't mean to tell me that for all
that time a perfectly sound and
healthy girl had shut herself
away from her friends-from sun
shine and fresh air"
"She can't be a young girl
now" Isobel argued. "And l
greatly doubt If she was sound
and healthy or she wouldn't have
behaved so. Why are you so sur
prised, Brenda? Aren't we for
ever reading in the papers of some
person who stayed in bed for
forty years because he'd quarreled
with his wife. or took VOW not
to eat bread, or something, until
some fancied wrong was recti-
fied?"@e-.
stfH-yes. But those are Just peo-
plesEf the newspapers. The Wicks
live on The Shortest Street,"
& Cross-Section OF Life ~
TSOBEL'S green eyes narrowed
! into laughter. my dear child,
The Shortest Street Is just little
piece Of the world-a cross Sec
ton of life. maybe, though I do
think our isolation brings out any
queerneSs we may have"
And now the Wicks, mother and
daughter. had sided out of their
own front door late one afternoon
and walked boldly to the old Burn
ham house and entered without
50 much as ringing or knocking.
1t CHANGED that Brenda was
just coming downstairs after sit
ting a long time with Adelaide.
She stared In amazement at the
two women who stood quietly
looking at her. She had an i'm
preston that they were dressed
for costume party of some sort.
Both had long hair, done UP in
great bundles on top of their
heads. They were stiffiy corseted,
their shoes were high and but
toned Brenda'S incredulous eyes
fingered on those shoes, and she
asked herself where on earth they
got theml Their clothes were of a
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