Suffer the Children

by John Saul

  “It’s all right, Daddy,” she said softly. “It’s over now.”

  At the touch, Jack started. His mind registered the fact that he hadn’t been aware of Elizabeth’s presence, and he felt the fear sweep over him again. He tried to cover it with a smile.

  “Hello, Princess,” he said, fighting to control the shakiness in his voice. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I wonder what she was doing,” Elizabeth said, standing close to her father. “I hope she didn’t hurt herself.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t,” Jack said, though he was far from sure. “Have a seat, and I’ll pour you some juice.”

  Elizabeth grinned at him crookedly. “How about if I sit on your lap?” she said.

  “My lap? Aren’t you getting a little big for that?”

  “Sometimes I like to feel small again,” Elizabeth replied. “Do you ever feel like that?”

  “Everyone feels like that,” Jack said, opening his arms. “Climb on up and be small for a while.”

  The girl sat on his knee, and Jack put an affectionate arm around her waist And then the door opened once more, and Rose stood staring stonily at him.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, her voice icy and her eyes accusing him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  “You’re not—” Elizabeth started to say, but she wasn’t allowed to finish.

  “Take your chair, Elizabeth,” her mother snapped. Obediently Elizabeth left her father’s lap and sat down in her chair. She reached for the orange juice and poured herself a glass.

  Jack started to rebuke his wife, then changed his mind. “Is everything all right out there?” he said instead.

  “Mrs. Goodrich has it under control, and Sarah seems to have settled down, but the kitchen’s a mess.

  Mrs. Goodrich thinks she was trying to get at the knife case for some reason.”

  “The knife case?” Jack repeated. Elizabeth began buttering a piece of danish.

  “Well, of course, she’s not sure,” Rose continued. “I can’t imagine what she’d want to do with a knife.”

  “No,” Jack said briefly, “I can’t either.” Then he searched his mind for another subject, something that would take all their minds off what had just happened. Suddenly he brightened and turned to Elizabeth.

  “Did you ever find Cecil?” he said.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to him. He must’ve run off somewhere. He’ll be back. Cats are like that, I guess. I’d rather have a dog, anyway. They pay more attention to you.”

  “I asked Mrs. Goodrich to look for him the other day,” Rose said, her foot moving to the button on the floor that would summon the housekeeper. “But I forgot all about it till this minute.” Rose, too, was glad for the distraction from the unpleasantness that had clouded an otherwise beautiful morning. Outside the sun was shining brightly. The door to the butler’s pantry opened, and Mrs. Goodrich’s stocky frame appeared.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Goodrich, I know it hasn’t been the best morning. But I was just wondering, did you ever find Cecil the other day?”

  “I got better things to do than search for an Independent cat,” the housekeeper said shortly. Then she relented. “No, I didn’t And I searched this place from top to bottom.” She seemed to think a moment, then spoke again. “Which reminds me. Somebody around here not satisfied with my work?”

  “Not satisfied?” Rose said blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Mrs. Goodrich said, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, “someone’s been up in the attic, cleaning. If you’d wanted the attic cleaned, you might have told me. I’m getting along, but I can still keep this house.”

  Rose glanced at her husband and her daughter; they both shrugged their innocence. “I’m sure I don’t know who cleaned it,” Rose said, trying her best to suggest that it probably hadn’t been cleaned at all. “And you didn’t see any traces of Cecil?”

  “Cats don’t leave traces,” Mrs. Goodrich said bluntly. She turned, then stepped aside. “Scuse me,” she said, and edged around the small form of Sarah, who had been standing, hidden behind the housekeeper’s bulky form, through the whole conversation about the cat Her eyes were filled with tears, and she was shaking.

  Elizabeth moved quickly to her sister and put her arms around her, stilling Sarah’s sobs with her embrace.

  “It’s all right, Sarah,” she said softly. “If Cecil doesn’t show up, we can get another cat Or maybe even a dog,” she added wistfully. Sarah’s trembling increased, and she seemed about to scream. Then she relaxed under Elizabeth’s loving smile.

  Rose watched Elizabeth dry Sarah’s eyes and lead her to the table, and wished once more that she had the compassion for Sarah that her older daughter clearly had. She banished the twinge of guilt she felt pass through her and poured more coffee, first for herself, then for Jack. It was in the way of calling a truce, at least for a while.

  12

  Port Arbello basked in the unusual warmth of the fall afternoon, and the sun warmed not only the air but also the atmosphere within the house at the end of the Point. By noon, a feeling of peace had overtaken the house, a peace all the Congers felt. The strain of the morning dissipated, and the undeclared truce between Jack and Rose seemed to be blossoming into an armistice. Within themselves, they wondered how long it would last, but each of them was determined to enjoy it while it was there.

  “I love Indian summer,” Rose commented over lunch. “Let’s do something this afternoon.”

  “Can’t,” Jack said apologetically. “I already promised Ray Norton a round of golf.”

  Rose felt a caustic phrase concerning neglect of family rise to her throat. She fought it down before it had the chance to ruin their lunch.

  “I’ve got some work to do anyway,” she said, and there was nothing in her voice to suggest disappointment, hostility, or anything else that might destroy the good mood she could feel in the room. Jack, who had been expecting some sort of dart, looked up in surprise.

  “I could cancel it,” he offered, and Rose knew it was a genuine offer.

  “No, you go ahead,” she said, the intention being sufficient for the fact. They finished lunch in the comfortable silence that often occurs between people who love each other, but which had been absent from their lives for so long. They greeted it with appreciation, and did nothing to disturb it.

  Jack left for his golf game, and the children disappeared upstairs. Rose wandered to her office in the small room at the front of the house and shuffled some papers around. She found she couldn’t concentrate. She left the office and rambled down the hall to the study at the rear. She entered the study, and something caught her eye. It was so fast, she wasn’t sure it had happened—one of those instants when one is sure one saw something, but has no idea what She glanced around the room, but nothing was amiss. She closed the door behind her and sat down. It was a pleasant room, and the sun streamed through the window. It flashed off an ancient brass spittoon that had been converted to a standing ashtray, and it occurred to Rose that that must have been what caught her eye as she entered. Then she glanced up at the old portrait above the mantel.

  It had to be an ancestor, she knew. The resemblance to Elizabeth was too remarkable for the girl in the picture not to be a Conger. But which one?

  They had found the picture up in the attic more than a year ago. But then the trouble with Sarah—as Rose liked to phrase it—had started, and it had not been until a month ago that she had remembered the portrait and brought it downstairs. It was odd, she reflected, not for the first time, how the painting had been tucked away in a corner. The Congers, who had apparently been much given to ancestor worship, had a large rack in the attic upon which those ancestors not currently on display in the lower portion of the house could be neatly stored. At the moment, the group in storage included nearly everybody; only Jack’s mother still enjoyed the light of day over the fireplace in the
living room. Even with all the ancestors in residence, there had still been plenty of room in the rack for the picture of the young girl. But she hadn’t been there. Instead, she had been hidden away in a corner.

  The other odd thing was that the girl was not identified. The frames of all the other portraits bore neat brass plates giving the name, date of birth, and date of death of their subjects. Except this one. This one had once borne such a plate, as evidenced by the two tiny nail holes in the bottom rail of the frame, but it had been removed.

  Rose stared at the portrait and wondered what had banished the little girl from the family gallery. Her imagination ran wild, and she entertained herself for some time creating scenarios to account for the girl’s fall from grace.

  And then it hit her. It had not been the sunlight on the spittoon that had caught her eye. It had been something in the portrait. She studied it carefully, trying to force her mind to make the connection again, to tell her what it was that she had recognized. Then it came to her.

  It was the bracelet. The bracelet on the girl’s wrist. She had seen it before, very recently. But where? It was a gold bracelet, and it seemed to be set with some sort of stone. It looked like opal, but in the old oil she couldn’t be sure. It could have been something else.

  She concentrated on remembering where she had seen the bracelet, why it was suddenly familiar. She drew a blank, and the longer she stared at the picture, the surer she became that it was not a real memory, but a simple déjà vu. The illusion of memory. She reached up to adjust the picture, which seemed to be tilted just slightly off center, and decided that she wasn’t going to spend any more time worrying about a bracelet in a picture. She really did have work to do.

  She returned to her study, determined to avoid looking out the window until she was well into the rhythm of her work. The day was just too pretty, and she knew that if she looked out too soon she would find an excuse to close her files and go out into the sun. But the sun could wait. She burrowed into the stack of papers on the desk.

  She didn’t really hear the door open an hour later, but was aware that she was no longer alone. She looked around and discovered that Sarah was with her, standing just inside the door, her huge brown eyes fixed on her mother. Rose put down her pen.

  “Sarah,” she said, and held out her arms. Slowly, almost warily, Sarah approached her. The little girl stopped when she was just beyond Rose’s reach.

  “She wants you to play with her,” Elizabeth said from the door. Rose glanced up.

  “I didn’t see you,” she said. “Come in.”

  “Not now,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going outside for a while. Sarah wants you to play with her.”

  “What does she want me to play?”

  “Whatever,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll see you later.” She disappeared, and a moment later Rose heard the front door open and close. She turned her attention back to Sarah.

  “What would you like to play?” she asked the silent child.

  Sarah merely stood there; then, after a few seconds, she backed a few paces away from Rose and sat heavily on the floor. Rose frowned slightly, then left her chair and joined her daughter on the floor.

  “Pease porridge hot,” Rose tried, clapping her hands first on her thighs, then together, then silently outward. There was no response from Sarah, who simply sat on the floor, her face in repose, staring steadily at her mother. Rose decided to try it again, this time guiding her daughter’s hands through the routine.

  “Pease porridge cold,” she said. “Now let’s try it together.”

  She went through the routine again, and on the first “Pease” Sarah’s hands clapped against her thighs. But as Rose resumed the chant, the child’s hands continued to slap her thighs, never progressing to the other variations. Rose found herself playing with empty air. Determinedly, she continued the game. Sarah’s hands clapped a steady rhythm against her thighs. Finally, when Rose stopped the game, Sarah’s hands continued to move, clapping hollowly into the silence.

  Rose watched the mindless clapping for a minute or two, then could stand it no more. She picked the child up and sat in a large chair, Sarah in her lap. The girl did not resist, but Rose had the distinct feeling that if she did not continue to support her daughter, the child would slip to the floor. She picked up a magazine from a table next to the chair, and began to leaf through it. Every now and then Sarah’s hand would reach out to stop the pages from turning. The third time it happened, Rose realized that Sarah was stopping the pages wherever there was a picture of a cat.

  “I know, darling,” she whispered. “If Cecil doesn’t come back in another day or two, we’ll get you another cat.”

  And suddenly Sarah was gone. Before Rose could do anything, the girl had wriggled from her lap and dashed out of the room. Rose could hear her retreating footsteps pounding up the stairs, and started to follow. Then she stopped, realizing that there was little she could do, since she had no way of finding out from Sarah what had gone wrong. She stood in her office door for a minute, listening carefully, but heard no sounds from above. It wasn’t until she was sure of the silence that she allowed herself to realize that she had not been expecting silence. She had been expecting pandemonium, an encore of this morning’s tantrum. When it failed to materialize, she felt relief. She left the office door open and returned to her desk.

  She had no idea how much later it was when she once more got the feeling that she was not alone. She glanced over her shoulder, and there, standing once more just inside the door, was Sarah. She seemed to start slightly when Rose glanced at her, and Rose turned quickly back to her work. But she was careful to listen for her daughter’s slightest movement.

  Sarah came into the room and began moving around, touching objects, picking things up to examine them, then putting them back where she had found them. Rose heard the small feet shuffling around the room, heard the tiny clicks as Sarah replaced the things she picked up. Then there was a silence, but Rose restrained herself from looking around to see what the girl was up to. Then she felt something touch her leg, and realized that Sarah had crept under the desk. Rose smiled to herself as she remembered how much fun she had had as a child pretending a desk was a cave. If her daughter was anything like she had been, she would be happy there the rest of the afternoon. Rose turned all her attention back to her work.

  As the afternoon wore on, Rose was occasionally aware of movement under the desk, but it wasn’t until she felt something being fastened around her ankle that she finally put her work aside. She sat very still, wondering what it was that Sarah was attaching to her. She waited, expecting something to touch her other leg, and she wasn’t disappointed.

  The girl was tying her feet together. Rose began planning the show she would put on for her daughter when Sarah had finished. She had tried the same trick as a child, tying her father’s shoestrings together as he sat at his desk, and had been gratified when he stood up, stumbled violently, then crashed around the room for almost a full minute before collapsing to the floor in a hopeless tangle. At the time it had never occurred to her that her father had not actually been out of control of the situation, and, indeed, it wasn’t until this very minute that she realized that he had put on the same carnival for her that she was about to stage for Sarah. Then she felt Sarah finish.

  “Well,” she said loudly. “That’s that. I guess I’ll stretch my legs.” She could picture the child grinning and quivering with suppressed laughter beneath her.

  Rose pushed away from the desk and moved her feet carefully to test the length of the string she was sure was hobbling her ankles. It seemed to very long indeed, and she wondered how she was going to be able to fake the thing convincingly.

  It wasn’t until she was fully away from the desk that she realized that there was no string at all, that it was something entirely different that was around her ankles.

  She reached down and felt something hard. When she looked, she felt her heart skip a beat, and had that feeling in her stomach t
hat she often got when an elevator dropped away beneath her feet. It was the bracelet.

  She pulled it from her ankle, forgetting about Sarah for the time being, and examined it carefully. Yes, it was the bracelet from the picture: gold set with a small opal. Tiny flecks of dirt clung to it, as if it had been lying outdoors for a long time. She stood up, intending to take it into the rear study for a careful comparison, and felt something else, something flopping against her other ankle.

  She looked down once more, and didn’t immediately recognize the other object It was a pale, whitish color, but badly stained, and seemed to have a buckle of some kind on it Then she realized what it was.

  A collar.

  A cat’s plastic flea collar.

  “Where in the world—” she muttered as she unfastened the collar from her ankle. She straightened up and examined the collar. It was dirty too, but it was not the same kind of dirt that was on the bracelet The collar bore specks of a reddish-brown substance. It took a while for Rose to realize that the substance looked like dried blood. When she did realize what it was, she stepped to the office door.

  “Mrs. Goodrich,” she called. “Come here, please. Quickly.”

  When she turned back to the study she realized that Sarah was still under the desk, tightly crouched, her small face peering out of the darkness like a rabbit trapped in a hole. Rose stared back at the child, not having any idea what to say. When Mrs. Goodrich appeared at the door, Rose hadn’t moved.

  “I sure hope my pies don’t get ruined,” the old woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. Then, when Rose didn’t turn around to face her, she stopped wiping her hands and spoke again.

  “Is something wrong, Miz Rose?” she asked.

  “I—I don’t know,” Rose said unsteadily. “Look at this.”

  She held out the flea collar, and Mrs. Goodrich reached to take it from her.