She stood on the platform with her neighbor, Gertrude Bender, waiting for the midmorning train. As the train came around the curve the station agent pushed out on a wagon one of those yellow wooden boxes that are used for transporting coffins. This simple fact of life came as a blow to Melissa’s high spirits. “It must be Gertrude Lockhart,” her friend whispered. “They’re sending her back to Indiana.”“I didn’t know she was dead,” Melissa said.“She hung herself in the garage,” her friend said, still whispering, and they boarded the train.Now it was not true that nothing happened in Proxmire Manor; the truth was that eventfulness in the community took such eccentric curves that it was difficult to comprehend. It was not a force of discreetness that kept Melissa from knowing Gertrude Lockhart’s story; it was that the story was more easily forgotten than understood. She had been, considering her widespread reputation for licentiousness, a singularly winsome woman; light-boned, quick, a little nervous.
