Mystery of Drear House

by Virginia Hamilton

  “That’s right, Mama,” Pesty said. “You always told me she stopped coming for the children. That’s why Mr. Walter and Miz Martha taking them.”

  Mr. Small went cautiously to the bed. Mrs. Small touched his arm. He nodded at her, meaning yes, he meant to take the boys. He motioned to Thomas. Mrs. Darrow watched them intently, but she made no move toward them.

  Thomas picked up Billy in his arms. Mr. Small took up Buster. “Now, let’s move,” he said quietly to Thomas.

  “Mama, we’re headed for the Drear house,” Pesty told her mother.

  “The only escape,” Mrs. Darrow said. Without another word she swooped through the dark to lead, with Pesty following.

  Mr. Small and Thomas, carrying the boys, and Mrs. Small made a tight circle.

  “Fugitives went from here to the Drear house,” Mr. Small murmured. “Triangles gave them their direction and money they might need—”

  Mrs. Small broke in. “Walter, I believe Mrs. Darrow is coming with us!”

  “It’s all right, Martha,” he said.

  “I can’t help feeling frightened,” she said in a hushed voice.

  “I know, and it’s the atmosphere down here, too,” he said “But I don’t think Mrs. Darrow means any harm. … Take the lantern there, Martha. We’ll need to see our way. Only Pesty and her mother know their way in the dark.”

  16

  “WELL, HELLO THERE, MATTIE,” Mr. Pluto said to Mrs. Darrow. He was sitting in the kitchen, talking to Great-grandmother Jeffers.

  Guess his tonic did him good! Thomas thought. Glad he and Great-grandmother got acquainted.

  Pluto rose to greet Mattie Darrow as she came down the hall. “Mattie, I’m so glad you are up and around again.” He folded her to him. She was as tall as he.

  I’ll be darn! Thomas thought. Mr. Pluto and Mrs. Darrow are friends.

  They all entered the Drear kitchen after traveling the tunnel back home and riding the turnaround wall in the upstairs bedroom. Mr. Small and Thomas put Billy and Buster down. The boys stood there, waving at Mr. Pluto.

  Mr. Pluto grinned, nodded at them, and continued. “She was Mattie Bray long before she ever married River Lewis Darrow. We are good pals! But, you know, sometimes history will get knotted up inside.” He spoke softly. “You know that, don’t you, Mr. Small? You are a historical man.”

  “Yes, I do know,” Mr. Small said.

  “Sometimes,” Pluto went on, “history will turn itself around so, twist itself up so, it cause a mind to reel and tangle inside it.” He took his arms from around Mattie and led her to one of the kitchen chairs.

  Mrs. Darrow sat, clutching the sides of the chair bottom. Pesty came to stand beside her. Mattie Darrow smiled up at Pluto. “Old Skinny,” she murmured.

  He laughed. “She always did call me that, because my last name is Skinner. I think that’s why!” He laughed again. “Mattie,” he said, “Mother Jeffers has some soup you wouldn’t believe.”

  Mattie glanced over at the steaming pot on the stove. “Hot pot,” she said, shaking her head, “dare not.”

  “Good, Mama,” Pesty murmured. “Keep talking.”

  “Oh, go ahead, dear,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said to Mattie. She went over to serve the soup, taking up a bowl and filling it from the pot. “Good vegetable soup. Martha made it before she left this morning, Mrs. Darrow,” she said.

  “Walter’s people,” Mattie said, as Great-grandmother put down the soup and a spoon in front of her.

  Mrs. Darrow understands a lot, Thomas thought. Being ill in the mind don’t mean you can’t think. Maybe it’s that you think too much the wrong way, too much of the time.

  Billy and Buster scrambled up on the chairs on either side of Mrs. Darrow. She stared from one to the other as though they were an amazing sight. She’s seeing the orphan children, just alike, Thomas thought. Well, it can’t hurt. This whole morning is just something!

  Billy and Buster eyed Mrs. Darrow’s soup.

  “Eat, Mama,” Pesty told Mattie Darrow, holding the soup spoon up to her.

  “Eat, Mama,” Billy and Buster said. They cocked their heads on opposite sides, staring from the soup to Mrs. Darrow, as she took the spoon.

  “Eat, Mama?” they repeated, turning to Martha.

  “Please, Mama?” Billy said.

  Mattie Darrow chuckled with soup spoon in hand now and a full spoon of soup in her mouth. She swallowed, eyeing the boys, and turned to Mrs. Small. “Spoon the orphans!” she commanded her.

  “Lord! I’m feeding them,” Martha whispered. She filled Billy’s and Buster’s bowls from the counter. She gave them each a teaspoon and a few crackers. Mattie touched her arm. Martha jumped. Then she understood. Something more than soup. She fixed a small plate of crackers and cheese for Mrs. Darrow.

  Buster leaned over Mrs. Darrow’s plate. He looked up at her and carefully, not taking his eyes off her, took a piece of cheese and put it on his cracker. Then he took a second piece and put it on his brother’s cracker.

  All the while Mrs. Darrow watched him but made no move to stop him. Then she began feeding Pesty some of her soup. Pesty ate it hungrily. Mattie kept her eyes on the boys, observing their every move.

  “Thomas, why don’t you fix yourself and Pesty some soup?” his mama said.

  “Okay,” Thomas answered. Pesty grinned at him.

  “The boys will be finished soon,” Martha said. “You and Pesty can have their chairs. I need to warn them about getting into things. I’ll take them upstairs.”

  “No!” said Buster.

  “Cheese!” demanded Billy.

  “Orphans, when do you leave?” Mattie Darrow hollered. The noise cut through the toddler voices of Billy and Buster. Mattie peered at them, her black, searing eyes pinning them where they were.

  “They’re leaving in a minute,” hurriedly Mrs. Small thought to say. “Thomas, help me with them. Here’s a plate of cheese for them. Fellows, I’ve made hot chocolate for you to have in your room.”

  “I’ll just go up with you-all,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said.

  Martha sighed. “Good,” she said.

  “Mr. Pluto, it was so nice of you to drop by,” Great-grandmother said.

  “Well, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other around here,” Pluto replied. “Good to talk to you.”

  “Good,” Billy said. Finished eating, he got down from the table and stood beside Great-grandmother. Buster was right behind him.

  Mrs. Darrow pushed back her chair and made to follow the boys. “Runnin’ away,” she said triumphantly.

  “Oh, no,” Martha Small whispered. “Walter? Walter!”

  Mr. Pluto cleared his throat. “Mattie. They go a new way,” he said.

  Startled, Mattie Darrow’s hands flew to her face.

  “But you and I, we’ll have to go over land,” Pluto told her. He smiled at her. “We daren’t all go together. Likely we’ll meet them on the road a ways.”

  Mattie grabbed his hand in both of hers, ready to follow him.

  “I’ll take her on back now,” Pluto said. He cleared his throat. “I’m a little hoarse,” he said generally. Oddly, he wouldn’t meet Mr. Small’s gaze.

  Mattie tugged at his arm. She turned her hooded eyes on Pesty.

  “Mama better get back before folks figure she ain’t in the bed,” Pesty said.

  Meaning her brothers, Thomas thought, and her papa, Mr. “Mean” Darrow. He took his own brothers’ hot chocolate and a plate of crackers upstairs, then hurried back down again.

  “She’s with me,” Pluto was saying when he came back.

  “Mama, I’ll be along in a little while,” Pesty said.

  “Best I take her back through the house?” Pluto asked Pesty, as solemnly Walter Small watched them.

  What’s Papa thinking? Thomas wondered.

  “Better, she slipped off out walking and stopped to see you,” Pesty told Pluto, “you bring her on back home. Then no chance of somebody bein’ in the bedroom and seein’ her c
ome through that closet.”

  “Huh,” Pluto said, nodding his agreement. “I’ll take her as far as the boundary of my place.” He knew Mattie would not want him to run into Darrow. He wouldn’t walk in on River Lewis for anything. “I’ll need something to keep her warm.”

  Mr. Small got up. He walked around Pluto to the hallway, saying to him under his breath, “You knew about those rooms down there and the entrance to upstairs. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was no need!” Pluto murmured. “It was Mattie’s secret. ...”

  “She won’t get cold,” Pesty said. “Mama don’t feel the cold.”

  Mr. Small called up the stairs to Martha for a blanket. She threw it down to him.

  Pluto wrapped the blanket around Mattie. He patted her hand, said to Pesty, “She may not notice it, but she gets cold like anybody else. Mattie, let’s take us a walk in the snow. We’ll go for a little stroll.”

  “Will there be war?” she asked in her odd, wispy voice.

  “Mattie, Mattie! The war been over!” Pluto said.

  She clapped her hands. “Daylight!” she exclaimed.

  They went out the kitchen door, and Mr. Small, Pesty, and Thomas listened to their footsteps crunching in the snow.

  “Still cold out,” Thomas said after a moment.

  Mr. Small remained silent, looking at Pesty. Thomas sat next to her. His papa sat across the table from them. “Whew! Some morning!” Thomas said. But slowly he began to feel his papa’s somber mood. Pesty’s, too.

  “I sure know what the orphan is like,” she said sadly.

  “It’s nothing to dwell on, Pesty,” Mr. Small said.

  “S’what I am, though,” she said, “just like them slave orphan children.”

  “Being an orphan is no shame, never was, and you have a family,” he said.

  “Some family,” she said. The Darrows were the only family she’d ever known.

  “Dwelling on the past,” Mr. Small said gently, “it has confused your mother’s mind. We don’t want that to happen to you, Pesty.”

  “Who cares about me?” she said, the weight of the world on her.

  “I care about you,” Thomas said. “You’re my friend.”

  “We all care about you, Pesty,” Mrs. Small said, coming in. “You’re just like one of the family.”

  “Thank y’all,” Pesty said. She took a deep breath and said, “My mama didn’t mean nobody any harm. Did she come in upstairs? Guess she must’ve.”

  “She came down the hall and scared Great-grandmother Jeffers. But she didn’t mean to,” Thomas said.

  “My mama been almost in bed since y’all came to the Drear house. That’s why you never seen her,” Pesty explained. “Then she start talking and walking.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Small. “But why did she come here?”

  “Well, wasn’t never nobody here,” Pesty said. “But everything change when you folks come to live here. But it won’t change for Mama. She keep on walking through. That’s why folks always say this house be haunted. The town kids. They probably seen Mama with her lantern going through the rooms late at night. Made her out a ghost.”

  “I’ll be darn!” Thomas exclaimed.

  “She got in here before I could stop her,” Pesty said.

  Pesty and Thomas commenced talking about what had happened earlier in the day, when Pesty revealed the secret way into Mr. Pluto’s cave.

  “I am still amazed that you never told us about the rooms underground,” Mr. Small said to Pesty. “They are valuable places historically.”

  She shrugged. “Everything was just going so well. Me and Mr. Thomas, getting along,” she said. “I sure liked being around Billy and Buster and y’all.” She looked shyly at Mr. and Mrs. Small.

  “Well, they love being around you, and Thomas, too, Pesty,” Mrs. Small said. “They consider you their big sister.” Mrs. Small touched Pesty gently on the cheek. “We made everything different, didn’t we, when we moved here? You’ve been worried to death about your mama and everything, haven’t you?”

  Pesty nodded, all choked up inside.

  “Well, don’t you worry anymore. Your mama didn’t hurt anything. Now she can come visit aboveground anytime you want to bring her over. And you know we love having you here. Nothing about that has changed.”

  Pesty looked delighted. “I thought maybe my brother Macky and Mr. Thomas might become just as close as me and Mr. Thomas.”

  “I don’t think we ever will, if he’s after treasure,” Thomas said, “trying to get Mr. Pluto to tell him something. If he did come through that hole the way Pesty and I did, then some treasure was what he was after.”

  “We found footprints, and they looked about exactly Macky’s size,” Pesty blurted to Mr. Small. She looked relieved to be telling the truth at last.

  “But when your brothers and your father came to Pluto’s cave,” Mr. Small said, “that night months ago, when they thought Pluto was sick in the hospital and they could search their way to treasure, Macky wouldn’t have any part of it.”

  “And so they cold-shouldered him,” Pesty said. “Nobody won’t talk to him all this time, except me and Mama. Won’t let him hunt with them, or go into town, or work with them, or nothing. They cut him out cold.”

  “Pesty, that’s terrible,” Mrs. Small said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Mr. Small said. “That kind of thing can hurt very deeply.”

  “Un-hum,” Pesty murmured. “Guess Macky thought if he could find something, maybe gold—I bet for sure that’s what got into him—he could make it up to my papa.”

  “He probably thought to end all of the strife in your family,” Mr. Small said. “Maybe he hoped to make your mother better somehow, too.”

  Thomas thought to say, “Macky’s a real good hunter. You can just tell by the way he gets around in the woods up there.”

  Mr. Small said, “Pesty, I wanted to ask you something. Does your mother know about the—” He paused and glanced toward the kitchen wall that could rise.

  No telling who might be behind it, Thomas thought, following his papa’s gaze.

  “Does she know about the great … you-know-what?”

  Pesty knew he meant the treasure cave. “No,” she said. “Least she never mentioned about it. She sometimes slip off, to go see Mr. Pluto. He wouldn’t tell her about it.” She sighed. “Mr. Pluto, he don’t want me to come over, go in there no more. Guess he’s worried, just like you are.”

  “There’s a lot to worry about, to consider,” Mr. Small said. “I don’t like all these secrets. Who knows how many more secrets there may be?” His voice shook slightly. “It’s all so astounding.”

  “There’s glass missing,” Thomas said out of the blue.

  “What, Thomas?” Mrs. Small said.

  “Glass,” Thomas repeated. “The old glass on the shelves of the you-know-what. Some of it’s missing. Some broke on the cavern floor. I found the pieces, but I didn’t tell Mr. Pluto.”

  “Somebody has gotten in!” Mr. Small exclaimed.

  Thomas shook his head. “No, Papa,” he said. “The broken glass was an accident. Wasn’t it, Pesty?”

  Sadly Thomas turned to her. “I saw the missing glass,” he said to her. “Two bottles, in that first room underground. You put them there, didn’t you?”

  “Pesty! You didn’t take rare glass from—” Mr. Small began. He stopped, seeing tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks.

  “You did, didn’t you?” Thomas said gently.

  Unable to speak, Pesty nodded.

  “Why did you do that?” Thomas said. “Why did you have to steal?”

  “Thomas, that’s enough,” Mrs. Small said. She went over to Pesty. “Here now,” she said, putting her arms around Pesty’s thin shoulders. If ever a child needed a strong, sane mother, it was Pesty. Her hair hadn’t been combed today. Her coat was frayed and dirty, hardly any buttons. ...

  Pesty sobbed, “I didn’t mean to steal it. Didn’t mean to break it!
It was just—” She broke down and started to say, “It was just … for my … mama. To give her … something so pretty ... to play with so she wouldn’t … come here and run into … y’all.”

  Mr. Small shook his head.

  “Poor baby,” Mrs. Small whispered, hugging Pesty to her.

  “Pesty, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Thomas said. “Oh, I don’t like having secrets, not even for a little while.”

  “Neither—neither do I,” Pesty managed to say.

  Mrs. Small gave Pesty a tissue to wipe her face.

  “There’s only one thing …” Mr. Small said, but didn’t finish.

  “What?” Thomas said.

  His papa looked preoccupied, staring down the hall and out the door. He seemed to be seeing beyond the place where they were. “The next few days will be busy,” he said. “Thomas, I want you and Pesty to go on as before. But when I tell you—Pesty, will you do something I want you to do at once?”

  “Well, sure, Mr. Small,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Thomas, be ready when I need you. ...”

  “Sure! But what’s going to happen?” he asked.

  Mr. Small just shook his head. He was out of the kitchen, going down the hall to the parlor room, which had become his study. He closed the door behind him. After a while they heard the muffled sound of his voice on the telephone with someone.

  I bet I know, Thomas thought. I bet we’re going to scare the daylights out of River Lewis and all the Darrow brothers one more time. I know that’s it!

  Thomas, who knew how to whittle, knew how best to entertain his twin brothers, and knew something now about walking the underground, as Pesty did, was wrong this time. Wrong as he could be.

  17

  ON SUNDAY LIFE IN the Drear house calmed down from the exciting day before. There were no more startling discoveries, and no one entered the house uninvited. Up early Thomas’s papa shut his study door firmly behind him and talked on the telephone for a long time. He came back out for breakfast, but his expression seemed tightly closed.

  Papa’s not about to tell anything, Thomas thought. Thomas resolved to take Great-grandmother Jeffers to see Mr. Pluto’s cave and the enormous hidden cavern. When she was still in bed, he told her, “You are just not going to believe your eyes when you see the you-know-what.”