Books: Up in Maggie’s Room

LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS—H. R. Hayes —Reynal & Hitchcock ($2.50).

“There’s something horrible in the world,” said Spinster Margaret to her bosom friend, Spinster Emily, as they sat together in their snug, rich home in the suburb of Wedgewood. “It’s these dreadful new ideas. They want to destroy everyone who has a little something, a little education, a little breeding.” Then she stroked Emily’s hair. “Pretty grey hair,” she said, “we’re getting old together.” After a moment she added: “Have you ever noticed how older men prefer young girls?” “Sensible men don’t,” Emily replied a little coldly. “I know, dear,” said Margaret, “but older men are seldom sensible.”

Roger Sherman, Wedgewood’s dapperest widower, came in, stroking his Vandyke beard. He pressed Emily’s hand warmly. “I have tickets for the concert,” he said. “They are playing Brahms. … If one of you dear ladies. . . .” “How nice!” cried Emily. “Brahms,” said Margaret, “is rather tiresome.”

Rich Emily subsidized a Home for destitute girls. Mr. Condon, the Episcopalian clergyman who ran the Home, came to get another $10,000. “The little I have will go to Margaret when I am gone,” said Emily, stroking Margaret’s hand. But a few days later Emily went to see Roger Sherman’s stamp collection. He whispered: “Dear Emily, I think of you as a lily, swaying on its stem. . . . Let me be your knight. . . . We shall seek for … truth, together.” “What if we don’t find it?” asked Emily gloomily. But Roger knew she had accepted him. “Shall you tell Margaret?” he asked. “Not yet,” said Emily nervously.

But Margaret guessed. Casually she informed Gloria, Wedgewood’s bad beauty, that Roger had a nice income and no one to share it with. While Gloria pursued Roger, Margaret took Emily to Maine for a nice holiday. Emily, she insisted, was not well; perhaps her heart was weak. “Our dear old doctor,” Margaret told the other vacationers, “suggests adrenalin.”

Back in Wedgewood Margaret urged Emily to stay in bed and rest her heart. When Roger called with the engagement ring in his pocket, Margaret kept him downstairs, murmured tearfully: “Emily hasn’t long to live. . . . It’s a blow to all of us.” Roger left, horrified. Emily phoned Roger, but he did not answer. Reason: Gloria was sitting firmly on his lap.

Margaret also had a little chat with Emily’s bank manager. She put him in a tizzy by hinting that Emily was not quite normal these days and might try to withdraw her fat bank account. So when Emily —who was growing frightened—phoned the manager to say she wanted to change her will, the manager just said soothingly that he’d drop around some time. But he did not appear. Upstairs, Margaret was filing the top off the ampoule of adrenalin.

These events, climaxed by satisfactory violence, persuaded the publishers to describe Lie Down in Darkness as “a devastating picture of the ‘society’ which it mirrors.” It is nothing of the sort. It is an orchidaceously morbid psychological thriller, smooth, fast-paced, taut with suspense.